
Class 
Book 



l'ki:si.\ri;i) my 



39^ 



PASTORAL SKETCHES 



REV. B. CARRADINE, D.D. 

Author of "A Journey to Palestine," "Sanctification," "The Sec- 
ond Blessing in Symbol," "The Lottery Exposed," "Church 
Entertainments," "The Bottle," "Secret Societies," 
"The Better IV ay," and "The Old Man." 



FIFTH EDITION 



CHRISTIAN WITNESS CO. 
CHICAGO, ILL. 



^ 



<> 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1896, 

By Kentucky Methodist Publishing Co., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 






PREFACE. 

This book was undertaken with a view to mental rest and 
relaxation. The author had not the time nor means to go to 
the mountains or seashore for u season of recuperation, and 
so wrote this volume. Three of the chapters — viii., xviii., and 
xix. — were penned some years ago. The remainder of the 
book was written during a part of the spring and summer of 
the present year. 

As the author wrote, his eyes were often wet with tears, and 
frequently the smiles would play about the mouth over 
the facts and fancies that (lowed from his pen. But it was not 
limph to elicit -miles and tears from himself or others that 
lume was written. These are on!\ means to an end or, 
more truly speaking, the gilt on the sword or the paint and 
trimmings of the chariot. 

The reader cannot but see thai, under the pathos and hu- 
mor of the book, follies are punctured, formality assailed, sin 
d, truth exalted, and dee]) spiritual Ie860n8 inculcated. 
The book is a transcript of human character, a description 
of a part of the life procession that is -cni moving in the ec- 
ical world or that is beheld from the (."lunch In the 
ministerial e 

So the volume wa i for a purpose; not simply that 

(3) ' 



4 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

it might prove a mental recreation and refreshment to the 
writer, but that it might accomplish good for others. The au- 
thor feels that the book has a mission, so he opens the window 
and sends it forth over the waves of the world. Whether it 
returns with the olive branch or never comes back, it is at- 
tended with the prayer of the writer that it may cheer and 
brighten the hearts of thousands of readers, and be a blessing 
wherever it goes. The Author. 

October, 1S96. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. Paok 

Reminiscences of Certain Preachers 7 

CHAPTER II. 
Baptismal Incidents 23 

CHAPTER III. 
The Interrupted Marriage Ceremony 31 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Indefinitely Postponed Marriage 48 

CHAPTER V. 
Some Funeral Scenes 62 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Choir 74 

CHAPTER VII. 
Street Preaching 9° 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A Remarkable Missionar] ICO 

CHAPTER IX. 

Certain Expressions and Pronunciations in Pulpit and Pew. Ill 

CHAPTER X. 

How Treacher- Arc "Taken In "... 128 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Confer, nee Letter 152 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Conference College 163 

CHAPTER xm. 

A Martyr l88 

(5) 



Gu ^ 3 o 4 

CHAPTER VV 
Li "le Jack 



6 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

CHAPTER XIV. Pao* 

CHAPTER XV. 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Emma C 2 ,_ 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Professor S „-„ 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

A Photograph of a Class of Conference Undergraduates. . 268 

CHAPTER XIX. 

The Sickness of Ziunne 2 5^ 

CHAPTER XX. 
The Annual Conference 2Q5 



PASTORAL SKETCHES. 



CHAPTER I. 

REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. 

©XE of the earliest memories in the life of the 
author is that of sitting by the side of his 
mother in church, as a little boy of five or six 
years, with his feet dangling halfway down to the 
floor, and his eyes fixed on the face of the preach- 
er, poised high above him and before him in the 
pulpit. 

Sometimes the day was hot, the sermon lengthy, 
and the little dangling legs became cramped and 
the neck wearied in looking upward so long at the 
speaker. But the reverent, listening face of the 
mother, and the boy's own awful sense of the dig- 
nity of the preacher, were sufficient to bring the 
curly-haired, white-jacketed lad through the serv- 
ice without rebuke to himself, and mortification to 
the mother. 

As the boy grew, the faces and forms in the 

pulpit changed, according to the policy of the 

(list Church. All were good men, but they 

(7) 



s 



PASTORAL SKETCHES. 



variously impressed the lad, as piety, eloquence, 
dress, personal characteristics, or other things too 
numerous to mention, prevailed. 

For instance, one is remembered more by a 
bald head than anything else. The child won- 
dered over the fact of an unending forehead, that 
went away up, and clear over, and was lost in the 
collar behind. 

Another had a very red face and a very loud 
voice, and this, coupled with the fact that he was 
an unusually large man, with a hand of corre- 
sponding proportions, caused a riveted attention 
to be given to all that he said and did. When 
that large hand struck the Bible a resounding 
blow, and the loud voice ascended at the same 
time, it meant something, and a certain small child 
in the audience never dreamed of going to sleep. 

Another is remembered mainly by a broad, white 
shirt bosom, in the center of which reposed a large 
gold stud; and by the way he pronounced the 
word "realizing." He divided the syllables in a 
slow, high-sounding way, thus: " re-al-i-zing." 
While the word was thus drawn out, India rubber 
fashion, yet it was pronounced with such a mu- 
sical roll of the voice that one person at least in 
the audience was fascinated. The child had no 



REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. 9 

idea what " realizing " meant, but he was enam- 
ored with the sound and bigness of the word, and 
yearned to live and grow up, that he might use the 
same word in conversation. He determined to 
employ it on all occasions, and knock down pla- 
toons of listeners even as he himself had been 
overrun and prostrated. 

A fourth greatly impressed him with the way he 
took out and put up his spectacles. The preacher 
was an aged man with white hair and heavy gray 
eyebrows. Everything he did was deliberate. As 
he stood up in the pulpit before the great Bible 
the child watched him with bated breath. He 
first glanced gravely over the audience ; then, hold- 
ing the left lapel of his coat with his left hand, he 
solemnly put his right hand into the inner side 
pocket and drew out a black tin box five inches 
long. He looked at it as if he had never seen it 
before. The child scarcely breathed as the preach- 
er slowlv opened the case and with finger and 
thumb drew out a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. 

In the most deliberate manner they were opened 
and carefully placed upon die nose; and then the 
tin ca e was closed with a snap that could be heard 

all over the church, and replaced in the side pock- 
-olemnlv Bfl B body is lowered in the grave. 



IO PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Then came the opening of the Bible. It was 
done reverently, and made the boy feel that the 
Book was different from all other books. Dis- 
tinct to this day is the memory how tenderly the 
leaves were turned, and how the eyes lingered as 
if the preacher saw many precious things while he 
was passing on to the selection of his text. We 
recall the gravity with which that text was read, 
and then reread. Then in the same deliberate 
way the tin box was taken out of the side pocket, 
the spectacles were removed with the right hand, 
and deposited in the case now open for their re- 
ception. For a moment the preacher looked down 
on them as one would at the face of a friend in a 
coffin, then came the snap, the screws were shot 
in, the casket was closed, the box lowered the 
second time into the grave, and the sermon began. 
Fully four minutes had elapsed since the preacher 
stood up, but somehow the soul felt that there had 
been no loss of time, and every second of time and 
every motion of the man had counted. However, 
not all can do as did this man. 

A fifth preacher is recalled by his habit of drink- 
ing a glass of water just in the middle of his sermon. 

The author was raised in Yazoo City, Miss. 
Just ten miles from that town was another smaller 



REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. II 

place called Benton. Exactly halfway between 
the two towns on the main plank road was a water- 
ing place called " The Ponds." Having stopped 
there frequently in his mother's carriage in pass- 
ing from one place to another, the writer of this 
sketch, as a child, had a vivid memory of the lo- 
cality and the watering. So when the preacher 
we now speak of would stop suddenly in his ser- 
mon and pour out a glass of water and drink it all 
down ; by a natural association of ideas the child 
in the audience felt in a vague way that the min- 
ister had reached "The Ponds" and was just 
halfway through his sermon. 

If the sermon were uninteresting, and the day 
warm, the sight of the preacher arriving at "The 
Ponds " and drinking, while the rest of the team, 
just as dry as he and even dryer, but not allowed 
by custom to share the refreshing draught, this 
sight was far from being calculated to promote re- 
ligious feelings in a parch-mouthed, neck-cricked, 
and leg-aching little boy. 

The very vision of- the glass pitcher, the CUt- 
goblet, the crystal water, the way the preach- 
er poured it out, and the way he drank it all down, 
wiped his mouth, and cleared his throat with a 
loud "Ahem!" were all exceedingly trying tea- 



12 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

tures in the transaction. This, coupled with the 
fact that we had just reached "The Ponds" — 
five miles still to go, and only one horse allowed 
to drink ! The thirst of the colts utterly ignored ! 
All this made life bitter for a while to a certain 
small spectator in the audience. 

If the whole congregation could have been wa- 
tered at the same time with the preacher, as we 
have sometimes seen in country churches, then it 
would have been "well with the child." But 
doubtless the preacher thought he was doing all 
the pulling and the congregation was riding, and 
so we could afford to wait until we reached — 
Yazoo City. 

It all depends upon where we are going to land, 
whetheh in the larger town, Yazoo City, or the 
small village of Benton. If the preacher is giving 
what might be called a cumulative sermon, one 
that grows richer, sweeter, better every minute, 
and ends in a climax of blessedness, we certainly 
could afford to wait. But what if the discourse 
" peters out." What if we begin with a big, grand 
text, and end in puerility. What if the speaker is 
carrying us to Benton all the time instead of Yazoo 
City. Then " The Ponds " business becomes sim- 
ply intolerable. 



REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. 13 

One thing is certain, that after the writer be- 
came a preacher, he remembered the pulpit water- 
ing incident, or ''The Ponds" scene, and deter- 
mined that in consideration of dry and thirsty 
people in the audience, and the tantalizing effect 
of one man drinking cool water in the presence of 
scores and hundreds who are also dry but are not 
allowed to drink — he resolved, for humanity's 
sake alone, that he would under no circumstances 
stop at " The Ponds " in the pulpit. 

This vow he has rigidly adhered to for twenty 
years. Later on after he had made the resolution, 
he discovered that what he had done in pity and 
consideration for others was really founded in 
wisdom. That God had so arranged the glands 
of the throat that ii a man should speak in public 
for hours, he needs no other moisture than that 
which nature supplies, or more truly the Creator 
furnishes, through his marvelous provisions and 
laws. 

A sixth preacher is remembered by his remark- 
able handling of his handkerchief while preaching. 
It was simply astonishing to see what the man did 
with that piece of white linen. In the course of 
the sermon he put it in and took it out of even- 
pocket in his coat and pantaloons. He would open 



H PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

it like a sail, pull it through his fingers like a string, 
roll it up like a ball, and then hide it under the 
Bible. 

The constant manipulation of the handkerchief 
soon affected its color, and the spectators in the 
pews saw the steady loss of immaculateness as the 
sermon proceeded. 

Half the time the brother did not know where 
the handkerchief was. So that part of the hour 
he was «■ hiding the handkerchief " and the other 
part trying io f ind it . One time he would raise the 
lid of the Bible, thinking it was there, when he had 
the minute before removed it to his hip pocket. 
Again, he made a dig for his coat-tail pocket for 
the now limp piece of goods; but he had thrust it 
inside his coat or under the Bible. Great sympa- 
thy and interest were excited in a number of the 
spectators, not to say auditors, as the preacher 
would begin a rapid investigating tour, slapping 
one pocket, then another, digging deep into an- 
other, lifting up the Bible in the fruitless quest for 
the missing goods, while a puzzled, anxious look 
was on his face and the perspiration was stream- 
ing. 

But for the proprieties, a number who kept up 
with the sleight-of-hand performance, rather than 



REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. 15 

the sermon, would gladly have helped the bewil- 
dered man at specially trying and difficult times ; 
calling out for instance. 

"It is in the right-hand coat-tail pocket "" — or 
'•It is stuffed in your vest " — or " It is under the 
Bible " — or " It is on the floor." 

This, of course, could not have been allowed. 

A seventh preacher we recall as owning a large, 
red, silk handkerchief with brown figured work. 
Before he began preaching as he sat in the pulpit 
he would take the handkerchief and give a dry, 
prolonged blow through his nostrils that was as- 
tonishing in its trumpetlike clearness and loud- 
ness. It seemed to be a signal for the battle. 
Then after taking the text came two or three short, 
dry blows, in which we felt that the troops were 
all in line and the conflict would now begin. 

Still later on in the discourse he would raise the 
red flag and give another blast so loud, so long, 
and BO rallying in its effect that the lines of Scott 
rush to the mind. 

One blast upon his bugle horn 
Was worth a thousand men. 

It was not the blow of a bad cold, but a dry 
blast with a trumpet twang. Whether it was done 
from habit formed during a bad cold, or from a 



l6 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

sense that his mental forces were scattered and 
needed to be recalled, rallied and reformed we do 
not know. We only remember that he always 
seemed refreshed after one of these blasts, and 
would charge the congregation anew as if he had 
just received reinforcements and nothing could 
withstand him. 

An eighth preacher we remember as small, 
slender, pale and scholarly. He was only with 
us two years, and the gifted, Christly man was 
sent to a large city w r here he soon afterwards 
died. 

How proud of him was the mother of this writer. 
She stood by him in a great trial that he had to en- 
dure occasioned by denominational jealousy. By 
her high regard for him she taught her family cir- 
cle to reverence the man of God. One of her 
great pleasures was to have him take tea or dinner 
with us, and on parting to slip a ten or twenty 
dollar bill in his hand. 

A ninth preacher was one of the holiest men 
that ever filled the pulpit of our church. As he 
preached his face fairly shone. At every sermon 
he looked like Stephen the day he stood up for 
his defense in Jerusalem. He carried this facial 
glory with him in the street, and wherever he went. 



REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. 1 7 

The countenance preached while the tongue was 
silent. 

Clear and bright is the memory of this man 
" leading the class." He stood in the altar con- 
fronting the small week-day assembly, and as he 
listened to the experiences of those before him, 
a look of holy love was in his eyes, and a tender 
sympathy in his voice, while the Moseslike shine 
was beaming in his face. Turning that transfig- 
ured countenance upon the writer who was then a 
lad of ten years, and the only child present, he 
said 

" Would you like to speak, my dear little boy? " 

And the little boy said, 

11 i am a great sinner," and burst into tears. 

He remembers to this day, after the flight of 
thirty-eight years, that everybody in the room 
wept. He did not altogether understand then the 
Becret of the general weeping, but does now in the 
words — 

11 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou 
irdained Btrength." 

The people did not support the preacher as they 

should, but he never complained. One day the 
writer, not yet twelve years of age, on looking out 
oJ the Bchool window saw him chopping wood in 
(2) 



iS 



PASTORAL SKETCHES. 



the parsonage yard. A great pain filled the boy's 
heart at seeing a minister of the gospel going 
through such manual labor. Accustomed as the 
lad was to being waited on by colored people, and 
to seeing only day laborers chop wood, he felt a 
great heartache on observing this good man at 
such toil. The boy suffered so he could scarcely 
study. He made up his mind in a moment on a 
plan of action, and after school succeeded in 
quickening another lad into a like state of sym- 
pathy, and got him to fall into his plan. Two 
hours afterwards a sharp rap on the parsonage 
door brought the wife of the preacher to the front 
gallery to see standing there two boys with axes 
on their shoulders, and requesting that they might 
be allowed to chop some wood for the preacher. 

There was a blended look on the woman's face 
as she looked at the lads. Surprise first, then 
amusement, and then a touched look, followed 
each other in quick succession. The last expres- 
sion abided as she silently pointed to the wood 
yard. 

We hacked away on the hard timber with 
blunt axes until our hands were blistered, but 
held on manfully until we saw a pile before us 
that was creditable to individuals of our time of 



REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. IQ. 

life. Our hands, unused to such work, were sore, 
but our hearts were very light and happy as we 
left the yard for the gate. The preacher's wife 
wa> at the door to thank us and say good-bye. 
She had a plate of tea cakes in her hand, and 
begged us to help ourselves. Our schoolboy 
friend waited for no other invitation, but helped 
himself bountifully. The writer, however, re- 
fused with thanks. The feeling in his heart was 
that if a preacher had to cut his own wood, he 
must be on the border of starvation, and to take 
even a cake from such a household would be to 
increase the misery, and so could not be thought 
of a moment. 

The preacher we helped that day was too spirit- 
ual for his people. And so on the plea of having 
bOO much excitement in his meetings he was sent 
away. lie died a lew years afterwards, as he had 
lived, full of the Holy Ghost. I lis wife never 
knew what a treasure she had until he was gone. 

Fifteen years after he left our Church, the 
writer, then a young preacher, stood at the foot of 
rave in a lonely country churchyard. The 
mound was almost even with the ground. A sim- 
ple WOOden slab bore his name, with time of birth 
and death. He was scarcely forty when he died. 



20 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

As we lingered by the little hillock we recalled 
the time he spoke to us in the class meeting, the 
hour we saw him cutting wood in his yard, and 
above all how his face used to shine in the pulpit. 
We felt convinced as we meditated alone that 
afternoon in the graveyard that the man himself 
was in heaven. We prayed some earnest prayers on 
our knees by the grave and came away a better man. 

A tenth personal memory of the apostolical line 
of ministers who blessed our Church centers upon 
one of the gentlest preachers we ever knew. 

No longer a child then, but a youth, we have a 
clearer recollection of him than of others. The 
man's modesty and humility was not assumed but 
genuine. He would give way to others who met 
him on the pavement. We saw him wait half an 
hour for his mail at the post office. Others were 
crowding about the general delivery window, but 
he stood aside for each newcomer, and was silent 
and patient until he could be waited on. The 
writer was then nineteen years of age, and as he 
took in the patient figure standing in the edge of 
the crowd, he felt, unconverted as he was, that 
Christ was projected before him and was visible in 
a reflected sense in the man of God before him. 

This preacher in the divine providence was 



REMINISCENCES OF CERTAIN PREACHERS. 21 

called on to minister to our family in times of 
sickness, trouble, and death. He was so gentle 
and Christlike that the entire household became 
deeply attached to him. A sister of the author 
died at the age of sixteen. She was buried in the 
midst of a large concourse of friends. The mem- 
ory of a hymn sung by a band of youths and 
young girls still lingers in the memory: 

Sister, thou wast mild and loveh . 

Gentle as the rammer breeze, 
Pleasant as the air of evening 

As it floats among the trees. 

How softly the words and strain of music arose 
among the cedars and marble pillars, and was 
lost in the quiet abodes of the dead. But still 
more vivid is the memory of the preacher who, 
having finished reading the solemn burial service, 
and while the clods were tailing upon the coffin 
lid, stood looking into the tar-away sky. It im- 
ed us as though one of God's servants had 
OOme down from the other world to render this 
e, but did nol belong to our planel in which 

i- laboring, and was looking up into the land 

he came from and to which he belonged. The 
comph-tc weanednee from this life shown by the 
man's attitude and look deeply impressed the 

writer at the time, and has never indeed left him. 



22 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

So the preachers came and went from our 
church. All were good men, some were better, 
and two or three were best. All had a message, 
all were commissioned and honored of God, and 
all brought a blessing. Most of them are now in 
the skies; and all of them, we firmly believe, will 
be there. 

It is a glad thought that if faithful we shall see 
them again. Men of God who preached to our 
fathers and mothers and were their personal friends. 
Servants and followers of Christ who baptized us 
as children, led us to Jesus, took us into the Church, 
married us, baptized our children, knelt by our 
bedsides, prayed for us in times of sickness, buried 
our dead, and came with gentle tread and voice 
into the silent and darkened home in the time of 
bereavement, and kept our hearts from breaking. 
Thank God for them all. 

May God reward the apostolical line that blessed 
the writer's childhood and youth. And may he 
bless all other true ministers of the gospel who, 
engaged in the " poorest of trades but noblest of 
callings," are seeking to project and perpetuate 
the life of the Son of God everywhere, and at all 
times, among the sorrowing and suffering children, 
of men. 



CHAPTER II. 

BAPTISMAL INCIDENTS. 

N E of the most beautiful services of the Church 
fa the rite of baptism. It is not only beautiful 
but impressive as well. We have often marked the 
tender, serious attention given by the audience, 
when on the bowed head of the kneeling man or 
woman we have poured the water, accompanying 
the act with the solemn words, " I baptize thee in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost. Amen." 

i numbers of times in the baptism of infants 
we have seen many eyes grow wet, and felt that 
many prayers were going up in behalf of the child 
thus dedicated to God. 

Sometimes, however, all things do not work 

thly, nor to edification; and it requires both 

a cool judgment and considerable knowledge of 

human nature to get along in a desirable way, es- 

ly when the candidates are children. 

To this day we remember a remark made about 

- ear-old " as he sat on his lather's 

arse and saw me crossing the 

(23) 



2 4 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

street not far from him. I had a few weeks be- 
fore baptized him, and thought it had been done 
well, both to the satisfaction of the parents and 
the child himself. But we recognized at once that 
there had been a woeful failure, as we caught his 
words, 

" There goes the man that put a drink of water 
on my head." 

It would be hard to describe the tone of injured 
innocence, the sense of outrage that was in those 
words. And so what we had so impressively done 
that day was to that boy nothing but the putting of 
a "drink of water" on his head. 

On another occasion the child to be baptized 
was just four years of age. The ceremony took 
place at the house of the parents. The boy in- 
sisted that he did not want to be baptized, and had 
to be dragged into the parlor by main force where 
the rest of the family, from grandfather down, 
were gathered. 

The little fellow was red in the face and defiant, 
and had to be pinioned with a firm hand as the 
service proceeded, to be kept from running away. 
When we came to the prayer and all knelt down, 
he had to be forced down by the maternal hand. 
Of course, during the prayer all in the room bowed 



BAPTISMAL INCIDENTS. 25 

their heads and closed their eyes; whereupon 
Young America, taking advantage of this and the 
loosened grasp of his mother's hand, " made a 
break" for the door. Aroused by the noise I 
. my ews from the ritual to see the boy on 
the threshold suddenly overtaken by that dexter- 
ous and faithful hand of the mother and uncere- 
moniously dragged back to the point of original 
departure. All the family opened their eyes at the 
same instant to take in the scene, so that it was 
with considerable working of facial muscles and 
a tremulous character of speech that they respond- 
ed "Amen " to the last petition. 

happened ten years ago, and we do not 
know how the lad turned out. We have thought 
Of him and wish him well. 

We were once called upon to baptize seven in- 

the children of the sons and daugh- 

elv family. It was sprung rather 

unexpectedly upon US alter a morning service. 

11 recollect the human line made up of the 

grandfather, grandmother, sons, sons-in-law, 

daughters - in - law, the white-capped 

and white-aproned nurses, and the seven babies 
i crowing and kicking in their arms. 

d the large church 



26 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

altar and made a most unusual and attractive 
scene. 

According to my custom after baptizing an in- 
fant, and before relinquishing it from my arms, I 
kiss the little innocent, with some appropriate 
words. 

That day it took seven kisses, and the brain had 
to be fertile to say something different over each 
child, and yet see to it that it would measure up to 
what had been said previously. The eyes of the 
young mothers watched me narrowly; and one 
told me afterwards — 

"You went through it all right, and said some- 
thing nice about them all, and kissed them all! — 
If you had not, you would have heard from us." 

Alas! what perils confront and surround the 
ministry. 

A ministerial friend of the writer was placed in 
a still greater predicament at a protracted meeting 
in the country. After the sermon was over one 
day, a comfortable-looking country matron passed 
two buxom children up to the pulpit for baptism. 
The children were twins, and about a year old. 

Our friend the Doctor read the sen-ice from the 
ritual, and took one of the babies in his arms 
while a fellow-preacher held the other. 



BAPTISMAL INCIDENTS. 27 

"Name this child," said the Doctor solemnly, 
with the water dripping through his ringers and 
looking at the mother. 

To his great surprise the mother spoke in a loud 
voice that could be heard all over the congrega- 
tion, 

•• O, Brother W , they have no names ! You 

name them." 

For a few moments Dr. W was taken aback, 

but quickly rallying, he determined to give his 
own name to one, and the name of his fellow- 
preacher to the other; so dipping his hand the 
second time into the water and approaching the 
head of the unconscious babe he cried out, 

" Thoma8, I baptize " — when suddenly the 

mother ejaculated, 

44 O, Brother W . they aren't boys! They 

irlsl " 

This time the Doctor was undoubtedly upset. 
Hut with a curiously Working mouth and twink- 
ling eyefl he rallied once more, and so for tin- 
third time the " scooped up in his hand 

and came down abundantly upon the Bible names 

Of Mary and Martha. OF Sarah and Rebecca, we 
i which. 

Our greatesl embarrassment was realized once 



28 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

in administering baptism by immersion for the 
first time. There were many things against us 
that day. First, the candidates were of goodly 
size. Second, the rite took place in a Baptist 
church whose corridors, rooms, inclined planes, 
and steps under the water, and baptismal suits we 
knew nothing of . Third, an immersionist preach- 
er stood in the audience before the pool evidently 
noticing our great ignorance and awkwardness in 
the whole matter from beginning to end. And, 
fourth, we were completely in the dark as to the 
best method of dipping and raising the subject. 

A Baptist or Christian minister thoroughly under- 
standing the business will take his position some- 
what back of the candidate, and letting him sink 
gradually and gently into the water will create no 
shock or strangling; and from that same place in 
the rear he will have leverage power to raise the 
immersed person quickly and with little trouble 
from the water. 

Ignorant of these facts we took our position in 
front of the lady, and thinking that the main 
thing was to get her under the water, that she 
might be " buried," we gave her an unmistakable 
" chug " or " douse " in the fluid and then pushed 
her down deep. 



BAPTISMAL INCIDENTS. 29 

To lift her now was the duty of the hour, and 
the trouble; lor we were in front of her and had 
no leverage. Besides this a great deal of water 
was resting upon her, adding thereby to the weight 
of her body, and forming a resisting medium 
when it came to lifting. The result was a pro- 
tracted stay under the water by the lady, the thor- 
ough immersion of the candidate as well as nine- 
teen-twentieths of the preacher, and a lively ef- 
fort upon the part of the lady to come to our 
help and rise to the air again. When she did 
appear above to the surface it was amazing to see 
how much water she had swallowed, and now re- 
turned to the pool. She was immersed both out- 
side and inside. 

We gave a deprecating glance at the immersion- 

ist preacher, who tried to look solemn, while there 

appeared in his eyes and lines of his mouth anoth- 
er look as if he wanted to get off somewhere and 
roll lor ten minutes. 

When we recovered our breath, we Baid in a 
voice that had a decided quaver oi anxiety about it, 
"Next." 
We have always wondered at the faith of those 

who came to us in the water after witnessing the 

above-narrated performance. 



30 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Well, we are an expert now, and can immerse 
with the grace, ease, and confidence of one raised 
in the Church where the rite is practiced all the 
time. But the memory of that baptismal incident 
has never faded and will never fade from our mind. 
We have a suspicion that the lady herself retains 
a recollection of the hour that is equally vivid and 
lasting. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE INTERRUPTED MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 

fHE marriage ceremony is always an interest- 
ing event. It will draw a crowd when noth- 
Ise will. Explanations kind and unkind are 
made concerning this drawing inlluence, some say- 
ing that it is an unselfish pleasure in seeing two 
lives made happy; others affirming that the spec- 
tacle of mutual delusion upon the part of two peo- 
ple otherwise sensible is the secret of attraction; 
ami -till others that people having been fooled 
themselves go to see others walk into the open 
trap of matrimony, This last imaginary opinion 
we rule out on various good grounds. 

Still, DO matter what may be the comment on 
the rite and hour, it remains that the marriage cer- 
emony ifl strangely attractive to all. A bright, ex- 

Qt look, a pleased smile, an openness of man- 

unusual heartiness, seems to come over- 
all. The bride is invisible, but is doubtless in a 
tte. The bridesmaids Butter with their 

i and out of the rooms with a look 

they did not know but that at any time some 

:;i 



3 2 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

bold knight might dash down upon them and bear 
them away to a distant castle of connubial happi- 
ness. The bridegroom, whether he walks or rides 
to the place of marriage, feels full of kindness to 
the world, and is in a mood to pat on the head 
every dog that he meets, and give small coins to 
all the beggars on the street corners. 

The preacher himself is pleased; partly because 
he is himself a center of observation until the bride 
enters, and because it is pleasant to make two 
hearts happy by the pronunciation of a few words, 
and because according to custom immemorial 
there is always expected from the happy bride- 
groom a remuneration that helps out the slim cler- 
ical income. 

There is an endless variety of weddings, of 
which the limits of this chapter will not allow a 
description. There are home and church wed- 
dings, simple and compound, unadorned and or- 
nate, in a big hurry and protracted to a great 
length. Some are all smiles, while we have 
known a few where everybody wept. 

Yet the majority are bright and sunshiny: Hope 
gilds the future, congratulations abound, hand- 
shakings are numerous, kisses cannot be counted, 
rice is cast on the young couple as they pass down 



THE INTERRUPTED MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 33 

the steps and an old shoe is thrown alter the car- 
riage that whirls away with the newly-married pair, 
and the crowd at the gate slowly disperses; some 
laughing, and others feeling strangely disposed to 
cry. 

a rule the bride during the ceremony is the 
-ell-possessed. Men nearly always are awk- 
ward, or look like they were going to be hung. 
Pew of them but stammer and stumble over the 
ritualistic responses ; not doing, however, as bad- 
,111 individual we read of who had by mistake 
memorized the answers in the baptismal service, 
hen the preacher asked 
••Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded 

amazing reply wae 
" I renounce them all." 

aid that the preacher looked at him through 

My friend, you must be a fool." 
To which came the ringing response, 
•• V.'. thi I teadfastly belie' 

lanation of the superior seli-possession 

man in this trying hour is that the celebra- 

marital ri occurs in the church, 

and women are more at home there than the men. 
}1 this is the lact that temale 



34 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

to have an enduement of calmness at such times, 
no matter where the marriage takes place, to which 
the stronger sex are strangers. Men frequently 
feel the need of some kind of nerve stimulant for 
the occasion, which, instead of giving the dignity 
and self-possession they wanted, actually makes 
them silly and hysterical. 

We were much struck with the self-assurance 
of the bride and the timorous condition of the 
bridegroom in a marriage we performed in a cer- 
tain Southern city. 

The ceremony took place in the church at the 
request of the lady. A goodly company had 
gathered and sat waiting for the approaching nup- 
tials. Prompt to the very moment, a thing quite 
unusual on such occasions, the carriage dashed 
up, and the happy pair preceded by several 
friends were seen coming up the aisle while the 
organ rumbled forth a welcome. The friends fell 
away to the right and left, and the pair to be 
joined in matrimony stood before the preacher. 
The bride was herself in every sense of the word, 
while the groom seemed to be under a great awe 
and dread of something. When the time for the 
prayer arrived, and they knelt on the crimson- 
cushioned panel that ran around the altar, the 



THE INTERRUPTED MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 35 

bricU wa* straight as an arrow, while the groom, 
overcome, doubtless, by the thoughts and associa- 
t the altar, went down like a mourner until 
his head was doI only near the carpel but jammed 
two of the altar rails. The contrast in 
tin- two positions was very Btriking and afford- 
ed much amusement to the audience in the rear. 
The bride did not at first notice the lowly position 
of the bridegroom, bul glancing out of the corner 
ol her eye to see how her beloved was bearing 
himself, -ho beheld his dejected attitude; when 
without a moment's delay she reached her hand 
fmiii under the bridal veil and gave her sinking 
eompanion a grasp by the arm. and a lift as well, 
and bo literally fished him up from the depths and 
landed him on his feet jusl in the nick of time to 
e the lasl words of the preacher in the beauti- 
ful and solemn ceremony. 

The compensation feature connected with the 
marriage rite, and generally known only to two 
people, the bridegroom and the minister, is also not 

without interest, and could bo written upon most 

voluminously. 
We heard of a preacher who was asked by a 

thy man to marry him to fl certain I" an 

t i ful lady. The preacher reflecting upon the 



36 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

prominence and wealth of the parties could not 
keep from expecting a large fee. The prepara- 
tions were great at the wedding mansion. Every 
window was ablaze with light, servants were run- 
ning in every direction, and carriages rolled up in 
numbers at the gate and discharged their richly 
dressed occupants. The preacher as he took 
note of all this and other things, again felt the re- 
muneration would be large. The moment came 
when the service was over and the rich man called 
the minister aside and slipped a coin in his hand. 
The preacher as promptly dropped the coin in his 
pocket, and with his hand upon it wondered 
whether it was a five or ten dollar gold piece. 
The front and side yards were illumined with 
great bonfires, and so gradually edging up to one 
of them he surreptitiously and with uneasy glances 
around to see if he was observed drew the coin up 
to the top of his pocket and let the light of the fire 
fall upon it. 

It was twenty-five cents ! 

On another occasion a wealthy bridegroom 
gave the officiating minister a pair of gloves. The 
surprise and pain of the preacher could hardly be 
expressed. He was a poor man and expected a 
good fee, and lo ! the man presented him with 



THE INTERRUPTED MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 37 

something he never wore and for which he had no 
earthly use. 

On returning home, and in answer to the ques- 
tioning look of his wife's eyes, he replied by hand- 
ing her the pair of kid gloves and sinking into a 
chair, with a half laugh, half groan. The wife 
with an unutterable expression placed the gloves 
in one of the bureau drawers and resumed her 
work with a sigh. 

Some months afterward the preacher was called 
to officiate at a marriage in high life and was pre- 
vailed on by the wife to put on the gloves which 
had lain untouched in the bureau for so long a 
time. With considerable reluctance he took them 
up and began to slip his fingers in them when he 
found an obstruction that felt like paper in each 
Removing the fancied paper 
wadding from one, to his astonishment he discov- 
liat it waa a five-dollar bill, and so in the 
second, the third, the fourth, and on to the tenth: 
every finger held a five-dollar bill! 

one of the most interesting marriage cere- 
is at which the author ever officiated took 
rly ministry, 
irday morning while busily engaged in 

pulpit preparation for the Sabbath, .i visitor was 



38 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

announced as desirous of seeing me on very impor- 
tant business. I found on going down to the front 
gate an elderly looking farmer standing by a light 
spring wagon. He was a man of about seventy 
years of age. I knew him as a member of the 
Methodist Church in the country, and also that 
he was a widower of a few months' standing. 

He was a red-faced, gray-whiskered man with 
a slight cock in one of his eyes which made you 
uncertain whether he was looking at you or not. 
It gave a meditative and far-away expression to 
his face, so that when he began speaking to me 
about the loneliness of his life and that his four 
sons now grown all felt the need of the presence 
of a woman in the house to regulate and control 
household affairs, I agreed sympathetically, think- 
ing that his slanting eye was even then on his wife's 
grave where his heart, I supposed, was deeply 
buried. I felt somehow that marriage was in the 
air, but thought that one of the four sons had in 
his bashfulness secured the venerable father to ap- 
proach me on the subject. I was confirmed in 
this opinion when the patriarchal father said that 
his oldest boy said he could not stand the loneli- 
ness of the house, and that there must be a wom- 
an brought in to direct and manage. 



THE INTERRUPTED MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 39 

The father seemed to be pleading so for hit 
son's happiness and content, that I cordially 
agreed with all the statements he made. Where- 
upon the father grew bolder and said that he had 
come expressly to get me to perform a marriage 
ceremony that very morning. I remarked that it 
was very inconvenient for me to do so, as I was 
busily engaged in preparation for the Sabbath, 
but that I would make a sacrifice of my time and 
come. 

Suddenly turning to him, I said: 

•• Which one of your boys is it that is going to 
marry } " 

In reply the old gentleman reached over in the 
spring wagon and selecting a large turnip from a 
pile in the corner, and opening a large pocket- 
knife, he cut off the green top and slowly com- 
menced peeling the round white vegetable. It re- 
quired a full minute to do this, alter which he cut 
nit a large slice, put it in his mouth, chewed and 
swallowed it. Then turning to me, he said: 

•' It i> Done of my boys that wants to get mar- 
ried ; it is me : I am the one." 

"Yotll " I exclaimed, for I was so surprised 
that I could not keep back the exclamatory accent. 

patriarchal with his long, white 



4-0 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

beard, and was a widower of such a few months' 
standing, that I thought he was pleading for his 
boys, when he was arguing his own case. 

If the venerable gentleman felt embarrassment 
or compunction through my exclamation, he buried 
them both under the rest of the turnip, which he 
sent down by sections, or rather mouthfuls, to 
cover up his feelings. He finished the turnip, 
wiped his knife blade, shut it up with a click, put 
it in his pocket, cleared his throat, wiped his mouth 
with a red handkerchief, and said: "Yes, sir, — I 
am the man to be married; the boys won't marry, 
and some one has to, and so I have concluded to 
do so." 

Here a new light was thrown on the occurrence. 
The man before me was a lamb being led to the 
slaughter, even if he was eating turnips, a most 
remarkable food for lambs. He was not caring 
particularly for the joys of married life, but was 
willing to become a victim for the sake of his boys. 

With difficulty I concealed my amusement, and 
asked: 

" Who is the lady whom 30U are to wed? ' 

The venerable brother took his knife out of his 
pocket, reached over in the wagon and drew out 
another turnip. There was more peeling and 



THE INTERRUPTED MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 4 1 

swallowing, in the midst of which I was informed 
that it was a young lady twenty-seven years of age, 
ister of the city undertaker, and that said un- 
dertaker was bitterly opposed to the marriage. 

"Are all the rest of the family opposed?'' I 
asked. 

" No," replied Brother Venerable, "her moth- 
er is in favor of it. Besides, the girl herself is 
d badly by her brother, and she wants to get 
away. And then she loves me." 

All s were brought up and out, by 

sending turnips down. 1 felt that if the interview 

much longer, our aged brother would die of 

cramp, and I would have a corpse on my hands 

a bridegroom; so we hurried the con- 

. 

ind out that the marriage was to take place 

* lt t! "' I'—. a mile out of town. 

That the young lady wa> already there awaiting 

be obtained up town as 

ad that if the brother found it 

out there would be trouble if not bloodshed. 

id th.it t! • old enough to 

ing, that the mother was 

unkind, that the girl 

eling justified in per- 



4 2 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

forming the service, told Brother Venerable tha> 
I would go with him. So I got into the wagon 
with what turnips there were left and rode up into 
the public square with the white-haired bridegroom 
who was marrying to please his boys. 

The prospect of an interrupted marriage, ending 
in fisticuffs or pistol balls, was not altogether pleas- 
ing, and knowing as I did the desperate character 
of the brother, and that he was accustomed by his 
profession or trade to handling corpses, there was 
no small amount of misgiving in my mind in re- 
gard to a coming storm. 

I sat in the buggy while Brother Venerable went 
into the courthouse for the license. While sit- 
ting there I saw the brother whose interference 
we apprehended, go into a store. As he did so 
Brother Venerable reappeared from the court- 
house, deliberately putting the license in his pock- 
et. With equal deliberation he got into the buggy 
and drove off at a jog trot across the square and 
down the street that led in the direction of the res- 
idence of Mrs. P — . As we moved out of the 
square the undertaker came out of the store and 
saw us driving off together. I saw him glare at 
us, and then walk quietly down one of the streets. 
As yet his suspicions were not aroused. But in 



THE INTERRUPTED MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 4.3 

ten minutes some one told him about the license 
having been taken out. He recalled our driving 
off together, and saw the whole thing at a glance. 
Rushing to the livery stable he hired and mounted 
a horse and galloped out of town alter us. 

We had fully fifteen minutes the start of him. 
Brother Venerable jogged on quietly, stopped 
once to fix one of the traces, and after awhile we 
rolled up to the house of destination where the 
blushing bride was awaiting us. 

ther Venerable left me in the parlor with 
M . 1\ — , and walking Into a back room where 
the expectant damsel was tarrying, he saluted her 
with a resounding kiss and an equally echoing 
slap i >n the hack. For a victim marrying for his 
ions' sake this did well. 

In another minute the}' stood before me, and I 
began the beautiful marriage service with one 
other individual in the person of Mrs. P — as a 
witness. 

While reading the opening sentences I became 

conscious of a greal hallooing some distance up 

\i fit ' I thought it was a person driv- 
ing cattle in the field, and remember wishing that 

would U-. • ferously. The calls, 

uder oul louder, and I found 



44 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

myself recognizing the word, " Stop " — " Stop" 
and something else that I could not distinguish. 

Just at that moment I saw a man on a white 
horse dashing down the road toward the gate, 
nourishing a pistol in his hand, and yelling: " Stop 
that marriage! stop that marriage." 

In a flash I saw that trouble was ahead, and that 
the ceremony could not be finished before the 
frenzied man would be in upon us; and so 1 
rushed quickly through the words, " Will you have 
this man to be your wedded husband; " to which 
the lady cried out : 

"I will! I will! I will! •• 

Skipping then to the end of the service, I began 
reading: " I pronounce you " — and before I could 
utter another word the infuriated undertaker was 
in the room prancing around like a madman, flour- 
ishing his pistol, cursing like a trooper, and cry- 
ing out: st O that I had gotten here five minutes 
sooner ! 

I saw at once that he was under the impression 
that the ceremony was over; and quietly deter- 
mined to let him abide in the mistake. And so he 
raved on in his ignorance. He cursed Brother 
Venerable, and told him that he had better pay for 
the coffin of his first wife before he married an- 



Till'. INTERRUPTED MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 45 

other woman. He also informed him that he had 
better be getting ready for the grave himself in- 
stead of making himself ridiculous by getting mar- 
ried again. The idea, he said, of a man getting 
married who had one leg in the grave, and was old 
enough to be the grandfather of his bride. 

Thus he screamed, raged, shook his fist and 
tore around the room, continuing to compliment 
in most fervent and picturesque language Brother 
Venerable, who stood in a corner combing his 
whiskers with trembling lingers while he fixed his 
• on vacancy, and kept saying: " That's 
all right! " " that's all right! " 

After a few more volleys the furious undertaker 
flung himself out of the room, jumped on his horse 
and galloped back to town. 

The instant In- departed I motioned the couple 
ad up, and commenced again in the middle 

Of the service, and in three minutes more D< ceni- 
nd Mae were one. 

ve remarked before in this chapter that 
the custom of gentlemen to remunerate the 

e which brings | o much hap- 
to the marrying parties. Now, when in ad- 
dition to the service itself a minister has to go 

Igh what I did that day; when blood, vapor. 



\6 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

smoke, galloping horses, yelling interrupters, 
curses, pistols, etc., crowd the hour — such a 
preacher has a right to expect something on the 
handsome and liberal order in the way of compen- 
sation. 

Thus naturally and reasonably expectant I stood 
to receive what Brother Venerable in his intensi- 
fied happiness felt disposed to give. This was 
what he gave, 

Approroaching me, and slapping me on the 
back he said, 

" God bless you ! " 

This was his pay. 

He thought doubtless that the blessing of Heav- 
en surpassed in value all of earth's treasures, 
which was true. But the preacher felt he had 
this blessing already direct from the skies, and 
questioned whether the " God bless you " would 
be honored above as a draft from such an eco- 
nomical individual. He the bridegroom wanted a 
material wife, but desired to pay for her in spir- 
itual currency. 

Some weeks afterwards the preacher told a 
friend in a laughing way what he had received 
from Brother Venerable for the marriage service. 
The friend told another friend, and this one 



THE INTERRUPTED MARRIAGE CEREMONY. |7 

another, and some one told the sexton and the 
sexton tolled the bell, and soon everybody was 
whispering and laughing over the circumstance. 

It was twelve months before the whisper reached 
Brother Venerable. It moved him. He felt that 
he could and would be generous. So driving up 
to the parsonage he called the preacher to come 
forth to the gate where he had masticated turnips 
over a year before. From the same spring wagon 
he took out a large gunny sack that was tied with 
a twine string. Passing the sack over to the 
preacher he said, 

•' I have been wanting to give vou something for 
what you did for me last year. Here it is in the 
>ack. I tell you, sir, it is a beauty." 

The preacher took the sack, untied the string, 
and looked in. 

It was a watermelon ! 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE INDEFINITELY POSTPONED MARRIAGE. 

7i|TMONG my visitors one morning was a hand- 
l)&± some, dark-eyed, black-moustached gen- 
tleman of apparently thirty years of age. He had 
quite a pleasing address, and I at once recalled 
him as the son-in-law of a wealthy merchant in 
the city, but who had been absent for several 
years in a distant State. The marriage as I re- 
membered had not been a happy one; the son-in- 
law being dissipated and extravagant. So a di- 
vorce was secured by the father-in-law, the daugh- 
ter returned to the parental mansion and the son- 
in-law emigrated. 

The man had passed out of my memory when 
suddenly on this morning he appeared as a visitor 
in my study. The announcement of his business 
was even more surprising. He told me that he 
had reformed and was back now in the city to 
remarry his wife; that in looking over the preach- 
ers he had selected me to perform the rite and 
wanted me to go with him at eight o'clock that 
evening for that purpose. He said also that he 
(48) 



THE INDEFINITELY POSTPONED MAEBIAGE. 49 

would call by for me and that we would walk 
together the trifling distance of fifteen or twenty 
blocks to the paternal homestead on such and such 
a street. 

Of course I consented, and had the additional 
pleasure of thinking that I was to reunite two sun- 
dered lives and so felt that an unusual grace and 
Messing would attend such a ceremony. 

Ar the appointed hour, the candidate for re- 
matrimony arrived and we walked through the 
gas-lighted streets to the home of the bride. As 
enl on together I could not but observe the 
oervousnese of the bridegroom at my side. Some 
agitation is naturally expected, but in this case it 
actually looked like trepidation. I charitably at- 
1 it to the recollection of the follies of the 
of how he had distressed the entire family 
he was now seeking to re-enter, and that these 
things very properly bore heavily upon his mind. 
A- approached the house I was surprised 

■ -.-<■ it brilliantly lighted Instead of this 
the whole fronl was in darkness. This I soon 
readily explained to myself as natural, the sad his- 
pa-t very properly suggesting a private 

wedding. 

as we had entered the front gate and were 
4 



sjo PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

ascending the broad flight of steps that led up to 
the hall door, the bridegroom amazed me by saying, 

«I am far from certain what kind of reception 
I am going to have here to-night.'' 

" What do you mean ? ' * 

" Just what I say," he replied ; " this is the first 
time I have been here in five years." 

" Have you not been here to call cm the family?" 
I asked. 

"I haven't seen the family," was his agitated 
response; " none," he added, " except my wife." 

" Where did you see her? " 

" We had a clandestine carriage ride yester- 
day." 

By this time we stood at the head of the gallery 
steps. I had wondered that the front door was 
not open, and that not even the hall light was 
burning. The whole house seemed dark. I be- 
gan to understand now in some measure. 

"Do you mean to tell me," I said, turning 
upon him, " that the family know nothing of our 
coming here to-night ? " 

" Well, Doctor, that is just so. Only my wife 
and one other person know our mission this even- 
ing. I got you to come in order for you to per- 
suade Mr. Rich to consent to our remarriage. I 



THE INDEFINITELY POSTPONED MARRIAGE. 5 1 

did not tell you of this before because I was afraid 
you would not come. But we know you have in- 
fluence with Mr. Rich, and you are now our only 
hope. Doctor, don't forsake us, but do the best 
you can, and God will bless you." 

To sav that this cool announcement knocked me 
almost breathless is not to speak extravagantly. 
I had come expecting a brilliantly lighted 
mansion, smiling servants, flower-adorned hall, a 
cordial family welcome and a blushing bride in 
the background, and lo ! I am unexpectedly thrust 
forward as a mediator and intercessor in a most 
delicate matter, where the father was known to be 
a man of his own will, and where the family had 
everv right to feel that they had been deeply 
mronged in the past by the individual by my side. 

The house was dark, but not darker than my 
mind at thia moment. The feeling that I had 
hem deceived rose up in my heart, and there was 
an inner debate for a moment as to whether I 
would go in and explain the matter to the family 
it necessity compelled it. or whether I should 
!ia>ty reti 

But th«- divorced man came nearer and said with 
a pleading voice, 

••Doctor, plea ■ stand by me to-night. We 



^ 2 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

want to marry again. My wife is unhappy in our 
present parted relation, and I am a changed man. 
And we cannot but hope that her father will re- 
lent and allow us to marry. One other member 
of the family is in the secret with us, and we all 
think that you can get the consent of Mr. Rich. 
Won't you help us this time and stand by us?" 

What could I say, and what could I do? Of 
course in the interests of humanity and to make 
two hearts happy, I consented. 

I told him to pull the doorbell. He did so, and 
we stood listening to the heavy clang in a distant 
part of the house. The " clang" had a mourn- 
ful sound and seemed drearily unlike a marriage 
bell, but more like a funeral knell, to one of the 
two on the gallery. 

After a full minute or so, we saw a light struck 
in the parlor, and then the hall door opened and 
we were ushered in by a servant. In a few min- 
utes more after taking our seats the bride and a 
lady member of the family came in. There was 
a hurried conversation, and it was agreed that I 
should go at once to the private office of Mr. 
Rich on the basement floor, where in company 
with his son he was busy with his business books 
and papers. The bridegroom in the parlor and 



THE INDEFINITELY POSTPONED MARRIAGE. 53 

the other two elsewhere were to await develop- 
ments. This last word can be divided legitimate- 
ly into the following syllables, Dev-il-up-meant. 

I was conducted by a servant through a long 
hall, down a staircase, along a narrow corridor to 
the office. As I was ushered in, the father arose 
with a pleasant smile and cordial greeting and 
asked with a warm shake of the hand what good 
wind had blown me there. 

The cordial greeting made my heart sick, feel- 
I did that my welcome would not be so glad 
when he heard the nature of my errand. 

Alter a Jew polite commonplace remarks, and 
noticing the interrogative expression on the eye- 
Mr. Rich, that he was still puzzled to 
know the object of my night visit, I said , 

•• Mr. Rich, I hope you will hear me patiently 
lor a fe • minutes in behalf of some who are close- 
ly related to you." 

Mr. Rich -aid nothing, but looked steadily at 

me. 

I . ontinuedi 

•• Y<m remember doubtless yonr son-in-law who 
left ' 

•• I to remember him.'* was 

the 01 ply. 



54 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

" I want to say a word about him." 

At this juncture the son, Mr. Rich, Jr., who 
was sitting near by engaged in writing, arose and 
went into a small side room, feeling doubtless that 
the interview was to be of a private nature. 

" I am glad to tell you," I said, " that your son- 
in-law has become a changed man, and is trying 
to redeem the past." 

" I have not the slightest confidence in his 
change," replied the father-in-law. "I know 
him too well." 

I felt that I was making poor progress, but pushed 
on bravely to the end, and told Mr. Rich that the 
son-in-law wanted him to know that he had re- 
formed, that he wanted to rectify the wrongs of 
the past; that he still loved his daughter, and he 
would be happy to have his consent to and bless- 
ing upon their marriage. 

The effect of this speech upon Mr. Rich was 
remarkable. He became at first crimson, and 
then purple. He sat for a moment in speechless 
astonishment, and then blurted out — 

"Marry my daughter again! Marry her after 
he spent her money, broke her heart, and sent my 
own wife to a premature grave — never, never, 
never — while I live ! ' ' 



THE INDEFINITELY POSTPONED MARRIAGE. 55 

•• But consider his youth at the time," I said. 
•• You know how men are changed under 
grace." 

••He has got no grace," was the retort. " You 
don't know him; you don't know what you are 
asking for." 

Then followed in rapid sentences a brief recital 
of the wrong and insults heaped upon him and his 
family by the man whose cause I was advocating 
until my heart sank, at the history. 

•• But," 1 urged, " his wife still loves him and is 
willing to be remarried." 

" I don't believe a word of it," exclaimed Mr. 
Rich ; " who said BO? " 

14 He said so," I replied. 

14 When and where?" was the quick question. 

"lie told me with his own lips to-day in my 
study." 

•• Do yon mean to tell me that lie is in the city?" 

44 Yea, air." 

14 Where IS he now? " 

•• I ';> tain in your parlor." 

If a bomb had fallen before the father and ex- 

I it could not have startled and shocked him 

more than the simple lentence l uttered. 
•'\\'h;i'!" he thundered. " In my house! In 



5^ PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

the house where he brought misery, insult, wrong, 
and we can say death, too. In nvy house ! " 

The infuriated man was on his feet and starting 
toward the door, when he was interrupted by his 
son, Winwood Rich, Jr., rushing in, as full of fury 
as his father, crying out, 

" Where is my pistol ! The villain ! To think 
of his coming into our house ! I'll kill him as soon 
as I can get at him." 

In another moment he had secured the pistol 
and made a dash for a side door. His father thun- 
dered at him in vain, he broke through the door 
and to my surprise and his he found himself in the 
detaining grasp of several females of the family, 
whom, it seems, had been silent auditors if not 
spectators of what had transpired in the office. 
The door was banged behind the angry young 
man, and I heard the excited outcry of the women, 

"Winwood, don't do it! don't doit! " 

And his reply: "Let me go! let me go, I tell 
you ! I will kill him . ' ' 

Then came the sound of struggling, and I could 
tell that he had loosed himself and was running 
toward the back steps to ascend to the parlor 
where sat, unconscious of his danger, the waiting 
groom 



THE INDEFINITELY POSTPONED MARRIAGE. 57 

Two of the ladies pursued Winwood, scream- 
ing, while the third flew up a small stairway that 
led more directly to the parlor, and, suddenly rush- 
ing into the room, cried to the man, who was al- 
ready excited by the loud cries downstairs, 

u Run for your life! Winwood is coming to 
kill you ! You have not a single moment to spare ! 
Run! " 

The divorced man needed no other bidding. 

Stopping not for his hat, he flew out of the parlor, 

- the hall, out on the gallery, down the steps, 

along the front walk, and out at the front gate 

with a swiftness that was as amazing as it was 

well-timed. Aa he dashed panic-struck out of the 

in up against a Methodist preacher who 

returning from a pastoral round at this late 

cognizing him, the fugitive said in gasps, 

•• Dr. Blank, run in there quickly and save Dr. 

C — , they are about to kill him." 

preacher with a cool nod and dignified 
of his hand .said. "Dr. C — is well able to 

taki If." 

opped DOt to be reassured of 

at sped on through the darkness leav- 

• itc the man whom In; had made a scape- 

I int<» the wilderness, and left there to die. 



ij8 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Meantime as I stood in Mr. Rich's office down- 
stairs I heard the screaming and running, the re- 
ceding voices and footsteps and looked every sec- 
ond to hear the crack of a pistol and the heavy 
fall of a human form on the floor. Mr. Rich, Sr., 
had disappeared through distant galleries and halls 
in pursuit of Mr. Rich, Jr., and I had been left 
alone. 

After a few moments I ascended to the upper 
hall where the center of agitation now seemed to 
be, and where all the actors of the night were 
gathered saved the divorced, who by this time was 
far away up the city. 

The hall presented a scene that for excitement, 
loud talking and natural groupings would have 
done honor to some dramas. The females were 
frightened and fluttered. Winwood, pistol in hand, 
after lamenting aloud that he got upstairs a min- 
ute too late, and, vowing fearful vengeance upon 
the man on the early morning, disappeared down- 
stairs. Meantime the father paraded up and down 
the hall going through what is known as " rav- 
ing." He called on things above and below to 
witness to things on the right and left. He spoke 
of gray hairs, broken hearts, and dead people. 
He threw up his hands toward the ceiling and 



THE INDEFINITELY POSTPONED MARRIAGE. 59 

brought them down again. He refused chairs 
that were offered him by the females. He was 
" raving," and could not afford to sit down. 

The whole scene would have been impressive 
if the father had been properly costumed for a 
"raver," but he happened to have on a little white 
sack coat that descended only two inches below 
the waistband of his black pantaloons, and being 
a man of broad dimensions, the attire and figure 
were not melodramatic. If he had only had on a 
dressing gown or anything that scraped the floor, 
it would have been well. But that unfortunate 
bobtail garment detracted much from the power 
of the ravings. So the more he raved, the more the 
women exchanged glances, and the more I shook 
with amusement in a chair in a distant corner. 

Maybe the Bhaking was misunderstood and re- 
garded as heart emotion and so produced addi- 
tional inspiration for more dramatics. Just as 
Once in a church a lady took a violent chill and 
-hook throughout the entire sermon. The preach- 
ed it and construing it to be the effect of 
rmon upon her conscience felt great liberty 

and surpassed himself. 

II. ..' ••.• left the house Wt do not remember: 
only • n the parental caldron ceased to 



60 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

boil so furiously, and the dramatist could descend 
from heroics to such common speeches as " Good 
night," we withdrew. It must have taken an ef- 
fort on his part to say, "Come again," in view of 
the circumstances of the evening. 

At ten o'clock we reached home and were pre- 
paring to retire, when a thundering rap came on 
the front door. Redressing and going forth we 
found the divorced standing on the gallery in the 
starlight. With considerable dignity of manner I 
said, 

" Good evening; what can I do for you?" 

" I came to see if you had gotten home." 

" I am here," I replied. 

"Did they hurt you? " asked the divorced. 

"I am alive and well, I thank you," was the 
dry response. 

" I was afraid from all the noise in the house 
that they were killing you." 

"I am surprised," I said, "that you did not 
stop to help me, or see if I was dead, if that was 
the case." 

" O," responded my visitor, " I hurried off 
down town to arm myself." 

I did not tell him that while he was arming him- 
self I could have been killed a thousand times. 



THE INDEFINITELY POSTPONED MARRIAGE. 6l 

After a pause he spake again. 

" Where is young Rich?*' 

"At home." 

" Well, Doctor, I am on the warpath, and will 
never stop until I have that man's blood." 

The memory of this man's rapid retreat from 
the house, and his calling it a '• warpath " was al- 
most too much for me, but I replied, 

" You need not waste time looking for Mr. Rich, 
Jr., for he will be out early looking for you." 

" Did he say so? " quickly asked the man oi 
the warpath. 

" Yes, that was the last thing I heard him say 
to-night before I left; that he would find you and 
kill you on sight in the morning. So my advice 
to you is that if you do not want to be killed you 
had best take the first train west in the morning." 

The divorced man was deeply thoughtful for ;i 
minute, and evidently determined to give up the 
warpath and try a towpath instead. He uttered 
a hasty farewell, and not waiting for the day with 
all its unknown possibilities, boarded a train that 
very night and departed for regions distant and 
unknown. 

And so this was how the wedding was indefi- 
nitely postponed. 



CHAPTER V. 

SOME FUNERAL SCENES. 

fHE funeral we trust is peculiar to this world. 
For solemnity and sadness it stands pre- 
eminent among many other sad and solemn 
things. Whether it is the burial of a child or 
aged person, whether the company gathered at 
the grave be small or great, composed of the up- 
per or lower classes, yet silence, awe, and melan- 
choly like spiritual statuary are felt to be there, 
and in an influential way preside over and con- 
trol the scene. 

The writer has buried hundreds of his fellow- 
creatures. Some in the village in the midst of the 
flowery scenes of spring. Some in the country 
graveyard in full view of the autumn fields with 
haze-covered hills in the distance, and crows fly- 
ing over the golden cornfields or cawing high up 
in the air. Some have been in the large city 
cemeteries in the midst of a wilderness of marble 
tombs and pillars, with lines and groups of cedars 
and waving magnolias. 

But all were impressive, and the voice of 
C62) 



SOME FUNERAL SCENES. 63 

prayer and the word of God never failed to come 
with peculiar power upon the silent funeral 
throng. 

The scene is familiar, is often repeated, and 
yet never loses its power. The life that was 
ushered into our world and welcomed with smiles 
and other expressions of joy, has now gone out 
into a new and unknown world, to return no 
more. And as men gather for the last look at the 
pale, still face, and think of what its owner now 
knows, and how far he is in distant spheres and 
fixed in character forever, there cannot but 
be solemnity. 

What a scene it is, the silent throng, the uncov- 
ered heads, the voice of the preacher breaking the 
silence with the memorable and ever solemnizing 
words, 

•• I am the resurrection and the life." 

Then comes the falling of the first clod on the 

cotlin lid, the patting of the earth with the spades, 

the laying of a lew (lowers at the headboard, the 

. the mental good-bye, the noiseless dis- 

: the crowd lest we waken the sleeper, 

and the sight from the carriage window of the 

-made grave in the distance, left in loneliness 

and to the darkness of the coming night. 



64 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Out of many of these funeral scenes a few de- 
tach themselves and call for peculiar recognition 
because of some scene or history connected with 
them. 

We were burying a poor man in one of the New 
Orleans cemeteries. He had died, said the doc- 
tor, from general debility, but the face even in 
death was suggestive of hard living and poor or 
insufficient food. 

At the door of the tomb stood the wife and two 
children, the youngest being a little boy of about 
three years. The sexton with trowel, brick, and 
mortar was rapidly closing up the opening of the 
vault into which the coffin had been deposited. 
Nothing but the click of the trowel was heard, 
while forty or fifty red-shirted firemen stood mo- 
tionless or quietly whispered in groups. The eye 
went from the black-robed figure of the wife to 
the little boy who stood by her with his face 
turned toward his father's tomb. From them our 
attention wandered for a moment to the outspread- 
ing boughs of some neighboring magnolia trees, 
as the workman was concluding his melancholy 
labor. Just as he laid the last brick in place, 
completely closing up the vault, such a heart- 
broken cry or wail went up from the little boy as 



BOMB PTINRRAL 65 

melted every heart and drew every eye upon 
him. 

It seems that the child had kept his eye riveted 
on the workman and the whole proceeding. De- 
voted to his father he was anxiouslv watching to 
see what was being done with him, thinking 
doubtless lie would be released by ami by. But 
when he saw the last brick put into place, and his 
father shut out from sight, the complete loss and 
final Reparation Beemed to break upon him for the 
first time, and uttering that peculiar cry of dis- 
tress that moved us all, he turned to his mother, 
buried his face in her black dress, weeping bitter- 
lv ami sa\ ing, 

11 I want my papa." 

The writer could not rest that night until lie vis- 

Ited again that poor little dwelling in the great 

city. It cased him some to bring some sweetmeats 

little fellow , and to kneel down with them 

all in prayer and commit them to the keeping of 

One who said that hf would be a husband to the 
widow and a father to the orphan. 

Another funeral memory ia connected with our 

in Vicksburg. 
'I" e subject waa a lovely young woman oi oot 
over twenty-four. She waa both wife and mother, 



66 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

losing her husband, however, several years before. 
She faded away from the world rather than died. 
We visited her a number of times and saw her 
ripen for the fields of light. Yet it was impos- 
sible to look at the face so young and beautiful, 
and the little girl, her only child, prattling about 
the room, and think of death taking her and part- 
ing the two, without a great pang of the heart. 

One morning she closed her eyes, and the gen- 
tle spirit winged its flight to the bosom of God. 

The body was taken by rail twelve miles west 
across the Mississippi River into the State of Louisi- 
ana, and we buried her in the afternoon at the home 
of her childhood on an old Southern plantation. 
The grave was in full view of the house at the edge 
of the grove of trees that surround the home and that 
had sung their leafy song over her when she was 
a child, and now sighed a requiem over the young 
wife and mother who had come back, and lain 
down to sleep forever at the feet of the grand, 
shadowy, friendly old woods. 

After the simple funeral, the neighbors scattered, 
the colored people went back to the quarters and 
the family returned to the house. 

It was a still summer afternoon, and with my 
heart filled with pensive reflections, I sat at the 



SOME FUNERAL SCENES. 67 

window of my bedroom from which I could see 
the newly made grave. A few locusts were sing- 
ing their drowsy song from the tops of the trees, 
a broad, cultivated country of cotton and corn 
stretched away in the distance, and on the horizon 
rested a beautiful pink cloud. 

Hearing voices I withdrew my attention from 
woods, fields, and crimson cloud, and afar off saw 
playing around the grave of the young mother her 
little girl of four years of age. As her prattling 
voice came floating to me on the breeze through the 
Window, all unconscious of her great loss, while 
at the same time knowing that her " mamma" was 
Underneath the sod, a sudden mist veiled my sight 
and the heart swelled until it literally ached. 

We have seen many tenderly beautiful pictures 
in nature and on canvas, but a more pathetically 
lovely one we never saw than the view from the 
window on that still summer evening. 

The quiet fields, the crimson cloud in the south, 
tin: Sighing grove about the house, the locusts' 

long, the fresh grave under the trees containing 
the silent form of the lovely young mother, while 

about the simple mound played, laughed and prat- 
tled in the Sunset the motherless child, who was 

happy in the fancy that the mother was close by. 



68 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Yes; just a few feet away under the grass. May- 
be, for all we know, the mother was still nearer. 
Anyhow we felt that the angels were walking about 
unseen under the trees guarding the prattling inno- 
cent. 

A third memory we give to the reader. 

We were sitting in the parlor at Vicksburg when 
a lady of our acquaintance called to say good-bye to 
my mother and myself, as she was about to take a 
trip down the Mississippi River to the Crescent City. 
She had engaged passage on the magnificent but 
ill-fated steamer, Robert E. Lee. While she spoke 
some parting words to us her child about eighteen 
months old played on the carpet at our feet. It 
was a child of striking beauty and several of the 
family commented on his appearance. 

These two, mother and child, took passage on 
the steamer that afternoon at five o'clock. The 
husband, a young merchant, had a vague forebod- 
ing of ill, and in a few last anxious words to the 
captain said, 

" Take good care of my wife and baby." 

The captain with a hearty, reassuring laugh told 
the young husband he had made many a trip, and 
landed many a passenger, and all would be well. 

The mother that night sat up until midnight en- 



SOME FUNERAL SCSI 69 

gaged in conversation with a lady while the child 
slept peacefully near by in a stateroom. 

A little alter twelve the child awoke and began 
to fret. The mother begging to be excused and 
saying good-night retired to her stateroom, dis- 
robed and lay down by the baby. In a few mo- 
ments the little fellow fell asleep. 

At one o'clock the mother was aroused by the 
stifling fumes of smoke coming through the tran- 
som into the room. Springing to the door and 
looking down the long saloon of the cabin she saw 
that the boat was on fire and the flames already 
were hallway down the cabin. Smoke and fire 
were everywhere) add it was impossible to go for- 
ward. As she stood for a moment paralyzed at 
the dreadful sight, she saw the young lady with 
whom she had conversed so lately running along 
through the cabin, turn and give a wild look at her 
and then disappear in the smoke. Her body 
was found several days afterwards. 

I e mother s;iw that she had no time to dress, 
the fire was coming in such frightful rapidity. So 
taking a life pre erver she fastened it about her 

body, and next placed the baby between her body 
and the preserver. In a minute more she stood on 
the back guard The night was dark. The boat 



7<D PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

was out in the stream. The Mississippi, at this 
point nearly a mile wide, flowed a dark, cold tide 
fully forty feet beneath her. 

There was but one thing to do. The fire had 
cut her off from the forward part of the boat, and 
was rapidly approaching. She had to burn up or 
leap that forty feet down into the dark river be- 
neath her. She had but a few seconds to decide. 
Standing on the guards, she steadied herself a 
moment, and then sprang out into the night, and 
came down with an arrowy rush into the river. 
The shock of course was great, and so great that 
unconsciously she loosened her hold on the baby, 
and so the little one slipped out from under the 
preserver and floated away in the darkness un- 
known to the mother, who battled with the waves 
with one hand and thought that she embraced 
child and life preserver with the other. 

Some one heard her cries, and several men in a 
skiff picked her up out of the dark flood as she 
was drifting downstream. 

When they drew her into the skiff and she saw 
at a glance that the child was gone, no mother 
need to be told of the agony of that moment, and 
the wild cry of anguish that rang along the banks. 

The telegraph clicked the news next morning 



SOME FUNERAL SCENES. 7 1 

to Vicksburg and the world of the burning of the 
boat, the loss of life, and the history of the drown- 
ing of the child as already narrated, with the ad- 
ditional fact that the body had not yet been found. 
It would be hard to describe the horror that was 
felt all over the city as the news was told with 
troubled faces and low, grieved voices. 

We doubt not that thousands prayed that the 
body of the little one might be found. 

Day followed day. The young mother was 
brought back to the city and was prostrated in 
her room with a grief so deep that all felt that the 
• to console would be a mockery. 
O if the body could be found ! 
So felt and wished and prayed thousands. Pa- 
^canned eagerly, and people asked one 
another continually 

•• Has the body of the child been found?" 

berg all over the city pressed their little dar- 
closer to them at night, as they thought of 
the sweet little dead child Boating about some- 
in the yellow current or driftwood of the 
ippi. 
The writer among others prayed many times, 
(i '. rd, ii tlu.u wilt, let the little one be 
found." 



72 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

One morning fully ten days after the accident, 
the telegraph flashed the news, 

"The child's body has been found! " 

Many eyes were wet that day as the short dis- 
patch was read; and many lips thanked God for 
the recovery of the body though the little spirit 
had long ago taken its flight to heaven. 

Later intelligence revealed that the body was 
discovered forty miles below the scene of the ac- 
cident, and was slowly floating downstream. A 
colored man was standing on the bank when he 
thought he saw the flutter of a white garment far 
out in the river. Rowing out he found the dead 
baby. That which had attracted his attention 
was a portion of the night dress that still clung 
to it. 

It was the burial of this child that made one of 
the funerals which the author has said he could 
never forget. 

We recall to-day the sunny parlor; the lace cur- 
tains stirred gently by the morning breeze ; the 
song of the birds outside and the odor of the flow- 
ers from the front garden. The parlors were 
thronged with ladies and gentlemen who sat per- 
fectly still, or if moving did so noiselessly. Not a 
single whisper could be heard. The mother was 



SOME FUNERAL SCI 73 

invisible. The father, white and haggard, sat in 
another room. 

On the white marble-topped center table rested 
a little white coffin, satin-lined and silver-plated. 
The child was within the white casket, that was of 
itself half buried under fragrant white flowers. 
The baby had come home, but so different from 
the way it had departed. It was asleep and would 
never awaken in this world again. 

Thought was busy with all about that fearful 
night; the burning boat, the awful leap in the 
flood, the lonely struggle in the waves by the little 
innocent, and then the ten days' drifting on the 
broad bosom of the Mississippi. All were glad to 
get the child back even though the soul had fled 
and the body had to be buried. 

preacher's voice was low and tremulous as 

for the dead and prayed. lie 

tnbers to this day that as he recited the beau- 

ti t nl and solemn words of the ritual there was not 

a dry vyv in the room. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CHOIR. 

fHE choir is an institution. As such it demands 
recognition, and requires skillful and delicate 
handling. As it is desired that it should be com- 
posed of the finest voices in the congregation, it is 
not always a spiritual collection of individuals, but 
instead musical art and taste tower frequently above 
piety. 

Intended at first to be a help, and kind of mu- 
sical servant to the preacher and congregation, it 
some years ago became inflated with the abun- 
dance of wind in the organ loft, "threw the tea 
overboard," declared its independence, and in 
many city churches to-day rules both congrega- 
tion and preacher. 

The Bible says that it has pleased God to save 
the world through preaching. God relies on the 
word preached with the Holy Ghost sent down 
from heaven to convict, subdue and save men. 
Hence preaching is the feature of religious wor- 
ship that should ever be kept prominent, and re- 
lied on under Christ as the instrument above all 
others that God is using for the salvation of men. 
(7-4) 



THE CHOIR. 75 

So whenever the church is truly scriptural. 
spiritual and powerful, it is noticeable that great 
emphasis and prominence are given to the preach- 
ing hour. Whereas, on the other hand, it is a 
mark of decadence, decay, formality and spiritual 
death when the sermon becomes an essay of fifteen 
minutes, and the choir monopolizes the better part 
of the hour. 

We would not underestimate the value of sing- 
ing. Its recognition in all ages in religious wor- 
ship shows it t<> be a desirable, powerful and blessed 
adjunct of the gospel. Xor does the author desire 
this chapter to be construed into an indiscriminate 
attack upon choirs, as if all were worldly and 
hurtful. 

On the contrary we know many beautiful and 
at souls who help in that part of divine serv- 
ed whose voices God delights to honor, and 
ling tlu- gospel to our souls with a tender 
that makes the hearer a better man or 
:i. We all have reason to thank God for 
Rich men bj Sankey, Bliss, Phillips, Sweney, 
Kirkpatriek and a host of others who have Bet the 
music and Bung it around tin- world. 

We likewise ble-s the IIolv Dili' tor the Cli: 

l hurch who have handed themselves 



*]6 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

together to add the charm and power of religious 
song to prayer and sermon. 

Still it is well to remember that no revival of re- 
ligion was ever secured by days of protracted sing- 
ing. No one dreams of such a thing. While we 
all know that days of faithful preaching has al- 
ways, and will ever bring down the divine power 
and secure the revival. 

This is significant and teaches us at once the 
relative importance of the two, and that the choir 
should never be given preeminence, but used 
simply as a help and kept subservient to the 
pulpit. 

It is to such places and instances where the choir 
has swept out of its true orbit, where it has ceased 
to be a subject and taken the throne, so to speak, 
that we call attention. Being formed often of a 
number of unconverted people, they have taken 
the greater part of the hour that should be devoted 
to the exposition of the Word of God and have 
introduced a style of music that so far from being 
spiritual is operatic and worldly. 

We once sat in the pulpit with a suffering fel- 
low-preacher in just such a church, and heard the 
organ quaver, rumble, squeak, and roar out a 
series of nothings from five to ten minutes; while 



THE CHOIR. 7 7 

the pastor and his flock, sat motionless until the 
11 nothing" was ended. It was called the 

" Organ Voluntary." 

It seemed to the writer to be the " Organ Invol- 
untary," as it was made up of sounds that we 
never heard before and that we are confident were 
entirely unpremeditated on the part of the per- 
former. We feel absolutely certain that we could 
make as much music, yes more, by striking at 
random all over the keyboard of an organ with 
outspread hands and lingers. 

Then followed the 

" Choir Voluntary." 

In this for fully ten minutes the singers shrieked 
and bellowed, called to each other and answered 
back, and then fought with invisible antagonists, 
and all shrieked at once together three times, and 
died, moaning in a low voice, except one who lived 
to tell in guttural tones something that no one un- 
ul, and then he died also. I for one was 
glad, and listened to the organ that was M mourn- 
ing to itself apart," with a sense of relief to ear 
and heart, when suddenly the organ gave a start 
omething had jumped OUt of the bushes and 
d it, and all the dead catnr to life, and sent 
forth an instantaneous and contemporaneous yell 



78 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

that fairly lifted me from my chair and raised my 
hair! 

Then ensued a kind of musical squabble in 
which the whole quartet took part, all very red 
in the face, while the rooster-tail feathers in the 
hat of the lady soprano fairly stood on end, and 
her eyebrows disappeared in her bangs, as she 
ran screeching up and down the leger lines above 
the staff. 

Meanwhile the female alto swooped in hovering 
owl circles around the soprano, crying " hoo-hoo- 
hoo " — " hoo-hoo-hoo." The tenor ascended to 
the comb of the house and called on the skies for 
help in terms that sounded like, "Mare-seel" 
The bass was lost in the cellar and kept grunting 
about something we could not understand. 

Finally after ten minutes of running up and 
down stairs, and bawling and screeching to each 
other, they all met in the garret and yelled "Ah- 
men " — "Ah-men" four times. The last "Ah- 
men " was four times longer than the others and 
was pulled out thus, "Ah-h-h-h-h-h — men-n-n-n- 
n-n-n." To which I mentally responded " Yes ! " 
and thought why not Ah-women too? 

One could not but feel that the masculine sex was 
being cruelly struck at under cover of the hymn. 



THE CHOIR. 79 

After all this the preacher said, " Let us pray ; " 
and we never went down on our knees with greater 
thankfulness. We felt that it was time to pray. 
That our only hope was in prayer. So with a 
stunned and almost despairing feeling we went 
down on our knees. The choir and most of the 
congregation >at upright. 

While we prayed the choir behind us were turn- 
er the leaves of their song books and getting 
ready for another musical parade or escapade. 
They, as we have said, Bat up, for it is not expect- 
ed of choirs to kneel. They do the singing for 
some churches at so much a month, and could 
hardly be expected to take part in other parts of 
divine worship, like kneeling and listening to the 
sermon, without a corresponding rise in their sal- 
aries. 

As the prayer lasted only three minutes, the 

enteen minutes ahead. 

me a hymn with a familiar name, 

but with BUCh a new arrangement of quarter and 

halt notes that the choir had tin: whole thing to it- 

. e minutes more. 
Then ili«: four-minute Scripture lesson 

to which no one Beemed to pay any attention. 

Thru another ii\ e-minute hymn, that had a taint 



80 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

resemblance to "Arlington." After which followed 
seven minutes of announcements. 

Just before the fifteen-minute essay, compli- 
mentarily and magnanimously called the sermon, 
came the 

"Vocal Solo." 

This lasts generally from twelve to fifteen min- 
utes, and is sung either by a gentleman whose 
voice sounds as if his mouth were full of mush ; or 
by a small-sized lady who sings soprano. She is 
usually quite homely and has been selected for the 
position on account of her marvelous musical 
powers. 

She begins with a little, thin, quavering voice 
almost nasal, which she keeps up for two pages of 
the piece which she holds in her hand. Just as 
she seems settled for the hour in the quavering 
business and the uninitiated begin to expect noth- 
ing else, she suddenly springs aloft with a " Whoop- 
eeeee ! " an octave and a half higher. 

This of course has a fine effect. It is in fact to 
the musical nerve and world what a bucket of cold 
water suddenly dashed on the body is to the phys- 
ical man, quite startling and exhilarating. 

We recommend it to preachers who find diffi- 
culty in arousing their audiences. Simply go 



THE CHOIR. 8l 

along through commonplaces for awhile and then 
without giving the crowd a moment's warning 
screech out. 

" Whoop-eeee ! " 

Why Dot? Will it not produce an effect? If 
•* Whoop-eeee' s " and yells are allowable in music 
why not in sermons? If in the choir why not in 
the pulpit? If the soprano can give a sudden yell 
why cannot the preacher? 

Brethren of the pulpit, stand up for your rights. 
Act on the suggestion, and astonish your congrega- 
tion ; and then turn round and astonish the choir. 

Why not? They have made you jump many a 
time; why not make them leap and squirm? 

After the female soloist had given the sudden 
war whoop. Bhe returned to walks of peace again, 
and meandered around without any tune at all as 
we could judge. She seemed to be in trou- 
ble about something, at least we feared so from 
the notes, lor the words we could not distinguish. 

■ quavered and whip-poor-willed and Wil- 
Bam-a-trimble-toed, and sobbed 

•• Pee-tee-n 

Which I did from my very heart . So did oth- 
ers in the audience, for 1 Baw two young Ladies 

about the age Oi the BOloist wiping their eves. 



82 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

After the service one of them embraced her and 
said 

"Clarinda, you must not strain that heavenly 
voice of yours. O child, as I heard you to-day I 
thought I was floating above the earth and listen- 
ing to the angels." 

Upon which Clarinda cooed, showed her teeth 
and tapping her on the arm with her fan said, 

" Flatterer! " 

A little later she said, 

" My voice was in wretched trim to-day. 

The remarks of the young lady and Clarinda 
brought light to me. We, it seems, had been 
listening to a classic piece, and it was " not of 
earth." The singer also had " strained her voice;" 
and she herself had admitted her voice was in 
poor trim. We had thought so from the start. 

Now all was clear; we knew we had never 
heard anything on "earth" like it before. And 
all that quavering was her effort with an un- 
trimmed voice and with " straining " to rise up to 
the " whoooop-eeeee " notes. She had succeed- 
ed in doing this only once. Her friends, then, 
must have been weeping over her failure. 

With this thought we spoke to a female relative 
that very day who understood music and owned 



THE CHOIR. 83 

an upright piano. But she said very warmly that 
the piece had been perfectly rendered, and divine- 
ly sung, that Miss Clarinda had never done better, 
and so we were all in the dark again. 
After the sermon came the 
" Collection Voluntary " or Offertory. 
The organ was alone this time again, and the 
collectors kept involuntary time, and dipped their 
plates at the people with a regular, rhythmic, har- 
monious movement, 

Keeping time, time, time, 
With :i sort of Runic rhyme. 

This they were well able to do, as the organist in 
this piece did nothing but practice his notes and 
run the scales. We had heard our little girls do 
it manv times at home and so instantly recognized 
it. lint when we mentioned this fact at home to 
the ladies of the family, all of whom are music- 
al, they cried out at once that we did not know 
what we were talking about, that what we thought 
was the BCalea was Prof. Shimmermoon's " Sym- 
phony of the Spher< 

Upon this we collapsed again. 

In addition to all the voluntaries and the two 

hymns and the Gloria at the end of the prayer, 

i third hvmn alter the collection. As 



84 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

we read the familiar name of "Hebron" we 
puckered our mouth to begin ; but somebody had 
been fooling with the notes again, and while we 
were persuaded it must be " Hebron," yet we 
saw it afar off, only now and then, from the hill- 
tops of a few musical notes we remembered. The 
rest of the country was so changed that we were 
afraid to risk the journey, and so sat down in de- 
spair this side of Hebron and let the choir go up 
and take the land. 

Up to this time the organist and quartet had 
taken up fifty minutes of the hour and a quarter 
allowed for morning service. 

Then came the doxology. We never would 
have known "Old Hundred" if some one had 
not told us. It was three times as long as usual 
with any number of semiquavers and hemi-demi- 
semiquavers patched on to the original garment 
in which we first made its acquaintance. 

After this came the benediction, and then we 
had what we suppose is called the 

" Farewell Voluntary." 

It was a parting shot from the organist into the 
confused and retreating ranks of the audience. 
It was a medley made up of fragments of a horn- 
pipe, jig, a Virginia reel, and a regular negro 



THE CHOIR. 85 

cabin "break-down." Under its influence the 
congregation was literally skipped, waltzed, and 
flung out of doors. 

Divine morning service was over! And the 
feeling now was, To your tents, O Israel! 

We have kept to the last the description of an 
11 Organ Voluntary M we heard some months since. 

Wearied from having held a number of meet- 
ings and being free one Sabbath morning to at- 
tend sen-ice where we would, we went to the 
church of a sister denomination. 

We sat down in a pew in a meditative and 
prayerful mood. Our heart was melted and the 
windows of the soul were open toward Jerusalem. 

The church was large, the aisles were thickly 
Carpeted, the Beats were cushioned, the windows 
itained, the pulpit was carved, the great or- 
gan tow. Ted up behind the pulpit toward the ceil- 
ing and the people were noiselessly slipping in and 
tilling the building. 

Suddenly .1 Bide door opened in the choir gallery 
and the organist followed by the quartet composed 

.ili- entered in single file 

and took their respects The organist, 

who was .1 pah-, thin-faced man with moustache, 
and <-\ 1 upon his stool, 



86 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

fully spread out some sheets of music, began pull- 
ing out stops, refixed his eyeglasses, straightened 
his coat tails as though he meant business, laid 
his fingers lightly on the keyboard and proceeded 
to give us the " Opening Organ Voluntary." 

This is what we heard. We took it down on 
the spot. It can be relied on as being perfectly 
correct. 

" Tweedle ! " 

This was a fine little note, away up in the treble; 
so fine it was, and faint, that one could just hear 
it. Judging from the dimensions of the organ, 
and the preparation of the organist, the size of the 
first sound was a little disappointing. We had ex- 
pected to hear a lion roar at least. 

" Tweedle! " Long pause. 

" Tweedle ! tweedle ! " Long pause. 

"Tweedle! tweedle! tweedle!" 

Now, we said, we will have it, when suddenly 
the organist backslided and fell back to first prin- 
ciples. 

" Tweedle ! " 

We then began looking for another tweedle, 
when lo ! he left the treble and went down into 
the bass and the organ said, 

"Doodle! " 



THE CHOIR. S7 

" Doodle ! doodle ! 

••Doodle! doodle! doodle!" 

What next? Would the Doodles be increased 
to four or fall back to one? 

We thought of the time when we had put straws 
down queer little holes we had found in the ground, 
and placing our mouth close to the earth had sung 
mournfully as taught by the colored people, 

" Doodle- bug ! doodle - bug ! doodle ! doodle ! 
dood!' 

Sometimes we caught them and sometimes we 
did not. We were getting affected over these 
memories. The heart was stirred. The organist 
with skillful hand had swept us back to childhood's 
happy hours when in our mother's back yard we 
had mourned over the doodle-bug holes. We con- 
■ being moved. When with that peculiar 
suddenness oi the musical world we were lifted 
from the " Doodles" and set down in a nest of 
44 Tweed! 

II. ••. they squirmed, twisted, got tangled and 

tell over each Other. In and out, up and down, 

. Bfty TweedleS in a minute, ending 

in one long Tweedle, thus — 
44 T c e del-M-1-1-11" 

a came a line oi Doodles, all tangled up to- 



88 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

gether, and ending with the patriarch of the fam- 
ily, one long 

" Doo-o-o-o-o— dul-1-1-1-1-1." 
It was difficult to keep back the tears here. The 
doodle call was so mournful. It was like the call 
of a woman for lost cows in the evening, when, 
softened by distance, the cry is lost in the echoing 
hills, 

" Doo-o-o-o-o— dul-1-1-1-1." 

After this there was a pause ; when the organist 
turned a page of his music, reset his eye-glasses, 
restraightened his coat tails and brought the 
" Tweedles " and the "Doodles" together in a 
regular Kilkenny cat fight. 

No pen, pencil or brush could justly describe 
what followed in the next five minutes. 

Here and there a " Tweedle " and "Doodle" 
were paired off; but yonder a dozen " Doodles " 
had one " Tweedle " down; and yonder a dozen 
"Tweedles" were chasing a single "Doodle" 
who was flying for his life. Here and there, up 
up and down the keyboard, round and round 
they went. The sun was darkened, the moon 
turned to blood, the earth trembled and shook, 
the stars were falling, the sea and waves were 
roaring, a cyclone met an earthquake and cloud- 



THE CHOIR. 89 

burst at Niagara Falls — when suddenly 1 in the 
midst of it all the organ which had seemed to be 
reeling, staggering, moaning, groaning, — went, 

" Clang " — " Bang " — ,k Crash-h-h-h ! " and 
everything was still. 

The cold chills went over me; my blood turned 
My heart almost ceased to beat! I felt 
that all was lost. 

The silence which followed was more dreadful 
than the noise. Could we have courage to look 
up and see what was left? It must be done. We 
owed it to the organist and to humanity. If any- 
body was left alive in the choir we must get them 
out at every hazard. And so lifting our anxious 
tood bewildered and amazed to see — 
that no one was hurt ! 

preacher was sitting calmly in his chair; 
the quartet were in B row as quiet as if nothing 
had happened] and the organist was slowly turn- 
ing the I the music before him in his search 
■fter the next pi< 

Ami BO it came to pass that some of us on 

"Tweedles" ami some of us on "Doodles," 

on plankfl of remembered strains, and oth- 

d broken pieces of the " Voluntary, " — lol 

we had .ill escaped rafe to land. 



CHAPTER VII. 

STREET PREACHING. 

m^PUEN churches get filled with the Holy 
YV Ghost, and have uncontainable blessings, 
it is certain to manifest itself in field and street 
preaching. The river overflows its banks; the 
steam sends the locomotive flying; the fire-filled 
man cannot keep still, and so sweeps over the 
land. 

So flamed the apostles in the first century, 
Luther and his adherents in the sixteenth, and 
Wesley and his followers in the eighteenth century. 
When Christians obtain the uncontainable bless- 
ing that Malachi speaks of, then it is they go forth 
to seek for souls and cannot be restrained. Wher- 
ever man is found they go, whether in highways, 
hedges, or market places; the burden is on them, 
the message of fire is to be delivered, and how 
they are straitened until the work is done. The 
ways adopted may be unusual, the methods irreg- 
ular, and not such as all will approve, but people 
are reached, the warning and invitation delivered 
and salvation flows. 
(90) 



STREET PREACHING. 91 

Nevertheless, the sailing is not smooth. Going 
forth with a loving heart, and with invitations to 
pardon and purity, yet many mock, and hindrances 
and difficulties of every kind arise from the very 
people we are desirous of saving. Organ grind- 
re hired and made to play against our sing- 
ing, praying and preaching, the popular, catchy 
songs of the day. Dogs are provoked to fight in 
the outskirts of the crowd ; and vehicles and horses 
are ridden furiously past to exasperate the leaders 
of the movement. More than once we have seen 
a person who had been sitting on the edge of the 
speaker's platform quietly listening to the sermon, 
suddenly spring to his feet and throw up his 
handfl with a howl that could be heard a block 
away. At first one would have supposed that con- 
viction hail struck the party, but as we observed 
that he rubbed his leg instead of beating his breast, 
and used fervent and most improper language, we 
led to inquire the secret of the excitement 

and discovered that a small hoy hidden under the 
platform had thrust a pill almost up to tin- head in 
.it ot tie- e.\a lamatory individual. 

e only a tew ot tin- pranks played, and 

but a brief glance ;>t the difficulties that besel open- 
sir preach:: - ri nll\- endured by 



92 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

the man who loves souls better than his own per- 
sonal ease and comfort. 

A revival spirit had broken out in a certain city 
district, and the churches, animated with a soul- 
saving desire, at once inaugurated a series of street 
services. Each church sent a chosen delegation 
of workers, and so moving from point to point, it 
was trusted that in a few months the entire city 
would feel the effects of the work. 

It happened on one occasion that the meeting 
was moved to one of the most difficult parts of the 
city. It was quite populous, but a hoodlum ele- 
ment predominated and it was notorious. It also 
happened that the writer was the preacher ap- 
pointed to open the meeting in this peculiarly hard 
field. 

If ever there was a time when we needed choice 
and numerous workers, it was that first night in 
this spiritually benighted quarter. When we came 
on the ground we found that the "help" (?) had 
arrived before us. This "help" consisted of a 
thin young man dying of consumption, two lads of 
about seventeen years of age and a timid young 
lady to operate the organ. 

As we took our places upon the platform, and 
observed the thousand or fifteen hundred dark, 



BTRBBT PREACHING. 93 

unsympathetic faces that were gathered about ub, 
and then looked at the " help " there wai coniid- 
erable misgiving of heart. 

The platform was illuminated by a lantern swung 
to a post that shot up from one of the corners ; the 
crowd itself that surged like great billows all 
around us was revealed more clearly by an electric 
light in the middle of the square some rods away. 

There was a feeling upon our little company 
that we were going to have a difficult time, but 
mustering up faith and courage we began. The 
little, asthmatic organ quavered under the opening 
hymn, while the consumptive brother with a very 
Wtak ami scarcely audible bass, and the two boys 
with gosling sopranos assisted in the feeble be- 
ginning. 

While the Consumptive was doing his best, he 

observed that his umbrella lying on the floor by 

ide was .-lowly but surely disappearing. 

Without losing a note the Consumptive quietly 

ted down ami Btopped further progress of his 

grasp that was turner than that of 

the unseen individual who was trying to abstract it. 

■ prayer that followed the hymn was Utterly 

In the genera] conversation that went on all 

around the platform by the great throng. Then 



94 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

followed another quavering hymn by the goslings, 
while the young lady bent to her task on the 
wheezy, little organ, like a galley slave to the oar. 

Many remarks of a most uncomplimentary na- 
ture were passed upon our appearance as we went 
on in the service. 

It would have been better that night if the 
preacher had selected a tender gospel subject, but 
instead we took a dark topic and made Mt. Sinai 
rock and groan for nearly an hour. We had not 
preached more than five minutes when we saw an 
egg thrown at us. It missed our head a few inches. 
We stopped in our subject a few seconds to remon- 
strate against this peculiar attack, and then re- 
sumed the Mt. Sinai rumblings. After this came 
more eggs. Some flew wide of the mark, some 
came very near, one raising the hair on the back 
of the head, while another broke and spattered on 
the post that held the lantern. A great shout of 
laughter greeted this decided hit, but we went on. 

The eggs came from different directions. Either 
there was more than one throwing them, or the 
man doing the pelting was moving about from 
place to place to keep from being recognized. 

The flying &gg made a curious missile. It could 
be plainly seen the instant it arose above the heads 



STREET PREACHING. 95 

of the people, and appeared in the electric light 
like a white ball making its way toward one, and 
being light in substance it came with less velocity 
than a stone, giving one an opportunity to dodge 
if one felt so inclined. We determined, however, 
not to dodge, but to trust the Lord to keep us safe 
from every missile. So we preached on with much 
mental anxiety as to the final outcome. 

At the same time we noticed that our " help," 
the Consumptive and the two Goslings, were all 
most affectionately hugging their seats and so 
keeping out of the range of the eggs. As we were 
in the meteoric belt or zone of Hying eggs we felt a 
growing desire for private life, or at least the end 
of our sermon and a seat lower down with the 
Gosh' 

While all this was going on, we had a great deal 

oi bantering interjected from various individuals 

in the crowd who differed with us Bermonically, 

ogically, and always facetiously, with every 

point we made. Among these gainsayers was a 

tall, gangling fellow who tried to entangle us in 
our talk in various ways and so put us to contusion. 

At one time he desired to know " whether we took 
the crowd out there to be a el oi monkeys*" to 
which we gave the sudden retort — 



OX) PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

11 No, but if you do not keep quiet and lay low 
I will take you to be the father of that entire breed 
of animals." 

At this there was a big guffaw in the crowd, and 
our joker was decidedly discomfited. But while 
he stood before the platform evidently meditating 
another verbal attack, one of the eggs came from 
the rear, described an arc and struck the joker 
right between the eyes. The egg promptly burst 
and its contents filled the eyes and streamed over 
the face of the man. His amazement and fright 
were amusing. He was in doubt at first whether 
he had been shot or struck by a stone. For a 
minute he did not doubt that it was his own blood 
and brains streaming over his countenance. And 
when we mention the fact that the eggs thrown 
that night were exceedingly mature, the apprehen- 
sion of the man was heightened by that very fact 
for he mistook the odor for gunpowder or his own 
corruption. At this moment a friend approached 
and took him by one of his outstretched hands and 
led him away looking like a small-sized Saul of 
Tarsus. The loud laugh and jeer that followed 
this ridiculous sight gave us a breathing moment 
and we then resumed the much-broken thread of 
our discourse. 



STREET PREACHING. 97 

But the eggs continued to fly, one of the last 
striking the music rack of the organ and splashing 
its contents over the fair player. 

It seemed, however, that unknown to us we had 
friends in the audience; and among them was a 
colored woman who set herself to the task of dis- 
covering the egg thrower. So she watched while 
we prayed and preached. Suddenly as an egg 
was hurled a great cry was raised, 

" I [ere be i here he is! " 

Then followed a great surge of the crowd, and 
a roar <>i voices Baying 

11 We've got him." 

r this the multitude like mighty sea billows 
rolled toward a certain quarter, and on looking in 
that direction we saw that the colored woman had 
spotted the individual, had pointed him out to a 
policeman who had caught him in the act, and 
in spite of the surging throng was not only 
holding on to him but bearing him away to one of 
v lockups. Two-thirds of our congregation 
promptly forsook us, to Bee the culprit borne away 

and lodged in the station. So in much contusion 

the !.: • ended with the vociferated an- 

nouncement that we would hold forth again the 
the same hour. 



98 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

We went down to the Police Court next morn- 
ing to intercede for the egg thrower, but the Chief 
of Police asked us plainly how he could protect us 
in the future from similar disturbances if we would 
not allow culprits to be punished after being ar- 
rested. 

The young man was finally released after sever- 
al hours' imprisonment and the payment of twen- 
ty-five dollars. His eggs proved to be costly. 

A week after that time, we went down again to 
the identical spot to hold another service. Just 
before we opened one of the Goslings was ap- 
proached by a man who told him that the man 
that had thrown the eggs and been punished for 
it, was around the corner in the dark and wanted 
to see him a moment. This was a trving request, 
but the Gosling summoned up his fortitude and 
went around the corner and found the egg thrower 
awaiting him. His request was that 

" If we wanted order kept, to call on him, and 
he was the man that was able and willing to help 
us out on that line ! " 

A few weeks after this one of the disturbers of 
that night slipped and fell from a roof and broke 
one of his limbs. A few days after that a wind 
storm knocked a corner off of a building that had 



!.)T PREACHING. 99 

turniahed a number of the peace violators of that 
tirst evening service. The old colored woman 
who had been our friend through the whole af- 
fair heard of the accident to the man, and saw 
the end of the building go down under the wind. 
placed her arms akimbo and cried — 
•• What I tole you : Didn't I tole you de Lawd 
sine to CUSS dis whole nay-borhood, and kill 
out dis poor white trash lor dey own owdacious- 
ness ! 

Here was Jonah again on the edge of the city 
looking tor Nineveh to be destroyed. 

All this was an apparently unfavorable begin- 
ospel work. But out of it all came a 
;i that has never gone down, but has ^ r ath- 
hildreil from the street, led main- 
souls to God, and has steadily resting upon it the 

■mile, favor, and protection <»f Heaven. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A REMARKABLE MISSIONARY. 

fHERE are a number of missionaries in the city 
of New Orleans. They are from Germany, 
France, Italy, and other far-away lands. Most 
of these workers are males, but a few are of the 
gentler sex. Some are sent out and supported 
by powerful Churches, others are kept in the 
field by individuals, and still others go out to labor 
looking for support to Him who feeds the spar- 
rows and clothes the lily, and who says we are of 
much more value than many sparrows. Without 
any concerted plan or agreement, strange to say 
they have distributed the work among themselves 
in such a manner as to suggest at once to the 
mind the thought of the great presiding, direct- 
ing Head of the Church. Some of these mission- 
aries labor in prisons and hospitals, others visit 
the houses of spiritual death where they pray and 
plead with their inmates; others are given to 
street corner preaching; still others distribute Bi- 
bles and tracts ; and a few frequent the wharves, 

watch the incoming vessels and strive in various 
(100) 



A REMARKABLE MISSIONARY. IOI 

ways lor the spiritual good of the bronzed sons of 
the ocean. 

Our own Methodist missionary from the front 
of a large " gospel wagon " which was drawn from 
point to point in the city, used to discourse nightly 
to hundreds concerning righteousness, temperance, 
and judgment to come. 

Yet there was still another in this missionary field 
who attracted my attention, and grew upon me 
constantly. So impressed was the writer that he 
called him according to the caption of this chap- 
ter a remarkable missionary. 

rything necessary to be said about him in 
explanation and description would be counted as 
so many elements of weakness. I le was a negro to 
\". ith, then he was self-appointed in his work, 
no Church commissioning him or supporting him. 
- poor, and without anv extraordi- 
nary gift or talent. This certainly seems Blender 
rial OUt of which to fashion a remarkable mis- 
sionary; and yet he was one for all that. It is the 
firm belief of this writer that he achieved more 

than a half-dozen others wh<> are ordained 

;it forth tO the work of saving men, backed 
up b | ideal power. 

Our remarkable missionary was a tin peddler. 



102 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

He went around with a little hand cart containing 
his stock in trade, and while disposing of his wares 
in different parts of the city would feel moved to 
sing and speak for Christ. The singing and talk- 
ing were the main thing — the business feature com- 
ing in parenthetically and indeed often omitted or 
forgotten. 

It is not easy to say how many exhortations he 
had on hand — perhaps not more than a General 
Conference officer has sermons on an annual trip. 
His song was one, but true and tried; like the 
sword presented to David " there is none like it." 
However he was not alone here on the song solo. 

The hymn he sung is called "A Poor Sinner 
Like Me." The first stanza being 

I was once far away from my Saviour, 

And as vile as a sinner could be, 
I wondered if Christ, the Redeemer, 

Could save a poor sinner like me. 

The hymn lias six or seven stanzas, the words 
full of gospel truth, strangely move the heart, while 
the melody is plaintive and soul melting. 

Our missionary, like many of hisrace, wasblessed 
with a musical voice. Clear and sweet it could be 
heard for squares, and always assembled a crowd. 
Trundling his hand cart up to some corner where 



A REMARKABLE MISSIONARY. IO3 

streets of populous character meet, he would stop 
and commence singing his hymn. Before he had 
finished he would have about him a mixed gathering 
of men, women and children, and with quite a va- 
riety of national, social and individual complexion. 
Nor was this all; the observant eye took in the 
slight opening of window blinds, setting ajar of 
doors and the convenient arrangement of slats and 
shades and 1"! the invisible audience was greater 
than the assembly on the pavement. 

Alter the hymn came the exhortation. It was 
the writer's privilege to hear him one summer 
afternoon. The speaker was striking that time at 
hypocrisy; "Gwine around," as he sarcastically 
said, •• wid two faces under one hat." His sen- 
tences were like hot shot at times; his points had 
points. Again and again there would be a de- 
cided sensation among his auditors as he struck 
home and conscience responded. The expression 
" two faces under one hat " served the purpose of 

. and be would return to it, quote it, and 

make verbal rally from it as though it had inspired 

him with new thought and strength and courage. 

ker alter a number of telling hits, and 

king with great fervor for fifteen min- 

oncluded with an exhortation to all to con- 



104 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

fess their sins and pray to God for forgiveness. 
He then resumed his song, laying special empha- 
sis on the last stanza, which he repeated several 
times : 

And when life's journey is over 
And I the dear Saviour shall see, 

I'll praise him forever and ever, 
For saving a sinner like me. 

As he finished the last line, this obscure servant 
of God suddenly grasped the handles of his cart 
and turned off, forgetting to cry his wares and sell 
his goods. The crowd dispersed, while we, turn- 
ing up another street, had the feeling that we had 
been to church, and that God was in both service 
and sermon. Truly, I said, this is not the first cart 
that has carried about the ark and blessing of God. 

As for the effect of our missionary's song on 
the hearts of thousands who heard him daily, I 
suppose we could form no just estimate. In some 
instances I have known of ladies sitting in their 
rooms who would on hearing the hymn be deeply 
affected. One whom I know and who is not easily 
affected, bowed her face on the little work table 
before her and wept like a child. 

Let the reader of this chapter secure a book 
containing the hymn, read the words and hear the 
melody and he will be ready to admit that such a 



A REMARKABLE MISSIONARY. IO5 

hymn sung up and down the streets of a great city 
is compelled to exercise a profound influence on 
the hearts and consciences of all who hear. 

On a certain occasion our missionary stopped 
at a corner and saw six white men and a negro 
gambling on the pavement. They were deeply 
engaged in their game, and bent over their dice 
oblivious of his presence and scrutiny. After con- 
templating them a few moments, our friend of the 
hand cart commenced his song: 

1 was once far auav from m\ Saviour, etc. 

Tin- first Btanza was a center shot, producing 
unmistakable signs of discomfiture. The second 
and third Btanzas were bombshells, breaking up 
tually; the fourth increased their 
confusion, while the fifth Btanza beheld the gam- 
blers beating a hasty retreat. They could not con- 
tinue in sin while the gospel was being sung in 
their hearing. The negro gambler was the only 
one left To him our missionary addressed him- 

you, y<ai yaller nigger, I have just one 

notion' at all to say to them 

white nii-11 : •' • I aid in my song. But 

voi, you yaller nigger, it" you don't repent 
and quit your gamblin', you sho' gwine to hell." 



106 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Here the "yaller nigger" beat a precipitate re- 
treat, and our missionary was left alone the undis- 
puted victor of the field ! 

John viii. 9: "And they which heard it, being 
convicted by their own conscience, went out one by 
one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last." 

By and by we heard him farther down the street. 
The rich mellow voice, the moving words of the 
hymn, the plaintive melody and the still summer 
afternoon air blended peculiarly and agreeably to- 
gether. 

I wandered on in the darkness 

Not a ray of light could I see; 
And the thought filled my heart with sadness 

There's no hope for a sinner like me. 
But then in that dark lonely hour 

A voice whispered sweetly to me, 
Saying, 4i Christ the Redeemer hath power 

To save a poor sinner like thee." 

We resumed our walk up the street, but stopped 
at the next block to obtain a last look of the man, 
and a last note of his song. Far in the distance was 
his figure, and we could just catch the words, 

No longer in darkness I'm walking 
For the light is now shining on me, 

And now unto others I'm telling 

How He saved a poor sinner like me. 

We turned down another street, and soon were 



A Rli.MARK.VBLL MISSIONARY. IO7 

in the midst of the rush and roar of cabs and cars, 
with hum of voices and tread of multitudinous feet. 
But over all and through all the strain seemed to 
be sounding in the ear and lingering in the heart. 
Especially the last verse would come back which 
the singer was so fond of repeating. 

And when life's jouriuv is over 

And I the dear Saviour shall 

I'll praise him forever and ever 

i\ ing a sinner like inc. 

Somehow while the strain and words of that 
hymn kept ringing in my ears that afternoon, the 
world looked very little, ami heaven felt very near 
.md precious. 

We drew several lessons from the whole history. 

One v . llong the line of Christian sac- 

Our missionary often forgot to sell his 

1 1 we, as the people of God, were so de- 

to soul saving that we would forget our little 

hand cart and tinware Commodities now and then. 

it WOllld exert a most healthful efte* ! on ourselves 

ami convincing influence on a skeptical world. 
I • absorbed in his work forgets to eat. Paul, 
I doubt not, often laid aside the tentmaking to tell 
enduring tabernacles in the skies. 
And 1 nother, aw ay dovi n in the 



108 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

scale, but away up in the spiritual grade, who can 
teach us lessons in the line of Christian sacrifice. 
The trouble with many is that they do not care to 
risk or lose anything for Christ. O, those precious 
little hand carts of ours, full of tinware merchan- 
dise retailing at ten to fifteen cents an article. O, 
that tobacco-stained store, that dingy office, how 
hard it is to leave them in order to come to the 
house of God or to do work for the Master. 

Another lesson that we drew from our missionary 
was one of Christian courage. Here was a poor un- 
supported negro, able to break up a wicked conclave 
with a single hymn ; while oftentimes the Church 
with all its prayers and hymns, and all the history 
of past achievements, and all the promises of di- 
vine support — stands aghast and silent, while per- 
mitting iniquity of all kinds to possess not only 
the streets but the entire land. And yet the 
Scripture teaches us that such is the power of a 
consecrated life, and such the inwardly defeated 
state of a wicked heart, that one man of God 
could chase a thousand and two put ten thousand 
to flight. 

Our missionary went down into the camp of 
the Midianites and revealed the state of things — 
they are already whipped ! Now then for Gideon 



A RBMARKABLE MISSIONARY. IO9 

and his three hundred ! Let but lanterns of truth 
Hash in their eves, let trumpet-toned proclama- 
tions of God's word be sounded in their ears, and 
let a few human vessels be broken in the charge 
against wickedness and the world will see the 
flight and downfall. Mr. Wesley used to say he 
wanted onlv one hundred devoted men in order to 
pull down the ramparts of sin and set up the 
kingdom of God on earth. 

A final lesson we gathered from our missionary 
was concerning human accessibility. I low we pray 
for it: u Lord, give us access to the hearts of the 
people! " and while we continue to do this, fan- 
cying that the prayer is not answered and that the 
time to favor Zion is not yet — behold ! a poor 
wandering negro missionary sings a simple little 
hymn full of gospel truth; and consciences are 
stirred and hearts melted in every direction. Busi- 
i^ along, unable to stop, yet gather 
I h to make the eyes become dim, and the 

swell with desires fur ;i better life on earth, 

and .m eternal rest hereafter. And ladies sitting 

behind doors and window blinds, suddenly soul- 

IWepI by an influence that we know to be the Spirit 

I vehi< led in a hum. m voiee — bow down their 
.aid weep in secret. 



IIO rASTORAI. SKETCHES. 

Every Sabbath we continue to pray, "Lord, 
give us access to the hearts cf the people I" and 
many days God sent the i nswer in this daily re- 
curring circumstance, and the answer was always 
the same, " Lo, I have done so ! " What can we 
say of ourselves after this but " O fools and slow 
of heart to believe." 



CHAPTER IX. 

CERTAIN EXPRESSIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS l\ 
PULPIT AND PEW. 

QrOME pulpit expressions once popular, are 
kD now traditional: others arc still flourishing 
and will never pass away. 

Among the former we recall the announce- 
ment — M There will be preaching here to-night at 
early candlelight." Sometimes it was pronounced 
" vtv'ly candlelight." 

There u.ts considerable ambiguity about this 

notice, afl people lighted their candles at different 

We judge however, that "early or \r/-ly 

candlelight" referred to the twilight hour. 

Somehow the heart grows tender and the eyes 
moist as we recall this expression. It brings back 
to mem ory a class of faithful men who have de- 
puted. They were the preachers of our fathers 

■nd mothers, and of people farther back still, who 

d away to the silent country. Their 

d to listen gravely and reverently to all 

their announcements. Thcv were good men, ami 

(111) 



112 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

after devoted lives have gone to the city that needs 
no candle, neither light of the sun. 

Another expression we recall was an earnest re- 
quest of the preacher directed to some invisible 
brother in the audience who pretended to some 
musical knowledge to 

" Please raise the tune." 

At once there was the clearing of somebody's 
throat, a moment's pause, and then somehow it 
seemed as if something else was raised beside the 
tune as evidenced by sounds worthy of a cracked 
trumpet with nasal accompaniments reaching out 
in the direction of " Arlington" or toward "Heb- 
ron." 

Once we knew of a preacher who in utter dis- 
trust of himself, and of the audience being able to 
acquit themselves creditably in a musical way, 
asked a brother to " Please raise the tune and then 
tote it." 

Without a tuning fork to regulate the " raisings" 
of the singer, sometimes the tune was elevated to 
exceedingly high regions, which brought forth a 
perfect screech together with sympathetic uplift- 
ing of eyebrows and great redness of countenance 
from the faithful ones who held on to the skyward 
song. Invariably when this was the case, the 



: >NS AND PRONUNCIATIONS. 113 

next hymn in being started was hardly raised at 
all, but was begun so low that it seemed to conve 
from the very boots of the brother. 

remarkable and memorable was the ef- 
fort to lower the tune when it was felt to be too 
high. Fir- 1 the singer would try to come down, 
but the throat seemed to be set to that one note, 
and BO alter three or four vain efforts, he would 
leave the deliverance to be effected by some broth- 
who in trying, fully intended to lower 
the vocal pitch, but whose very anxiety keyed 
h a degree, and so constricted the 
throat and elevated the voice, that the)' not only 
perpetuated the shriek but actually added to its 
volume. The whole proceeding reminded me of 
the interesting history of the " Twist-Mouth Fam- 
ily." It required much grace for a preacher to 
is text after one of these performances in 

A M. thodist preacher once told the author that 

in the absence of the musical lay brother, 

here the burden <>t' raising the tune devolved 

upon him, that he had the most unfortunate way, 

1 ommoa meter hymn, of try- 

ter tune. 1 le said that bv 

■ in] " turn- 



114 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

turn," he got through but not without great embar- 
rassment and considerable perspiration. 

Another expression dropping from some pulpits 
is " Gos-^/7/." 

More than once we have heard some of our 
ministerial brethren say, " I am not ashamed of 
the gos-^7/," or lining the hymn would accent 
after the same manner, 

How 6weet the gos-//7/'.v charming sound. 

It was wonderful to note how their voices bore 
down on the word " pill," and with such a clear, 
ringing accent, as left no doubt in the minds of 
the hearers that it was the word "pill" that was 
used and not "pel." As a rule we have noticed 
that the brother who thus mispronounces, makes 
salvation more like a pill than like the clear water, 
the dripping honey, the heavenly manna, the 
sparkling wine, and other striking and agreeable 
figures with which the prophets and apostles 
clothed the gospel truth and life. For many years 
owing to the way it was presented and lived, 
the Christian religion was to the writer like a 
" pill." Finally he discovered that it was the way 
certain people rolled the bread of life, causing it 
to look unappetizing, medicinelike and forbidding; 
that the same bread of life could be offered by 



EXPRESSIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS. 1 15 

another hand, and it would be so fresh and warm, 
with such a dainty lump of the honeycomb that 
David speaks of upon it, together with some of the 
butter that another prophet alluded to, that the 
struggle was not to get away from it, but to get 
away with it, in other word*, to partake of the nu- 
tritious and delightful spiritual food. 

Still another word comes to mind that we have 
heard incorrectly accented, and often by ministers. 
It is the word " pulpit." 

Not infrequently we have heard a preacher say 
to the congregation that he next Sabbath would 
occupy the pul-//V as usual. With that remark- 
able accenting of the second instead of the first 
syllable the " pit " appeared. No allusion is here 
made to hell; but not the less does the platform 
and Bible stand seem to be a "pit" to some 
people. 

We have heard the word drawn out even more 
remarkably into " p-u-1-l-pit,*' a strong accent be- 
ing placed on both syllables. Thus the agony 
to be intensified, and where ought to be the 

brightest, happiest and most sunshiny spot in the 

chur< li it a -'pull-pit ." 

<• men walk into it as men used to enter the 
arena with awords, looking for gore, conflict and 



Il6 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

death. A preacher told the writer that whenever 
he entered the pulpit he became sick with nervous 
dread. It was a "pull" to him from beginning 
to end, and a " pit " from top to bottom. Now 
then for the text: " I am not ashamed of the 'gos- 
ftll.'" Agos-pill and a pull-pit go well together. 
We have seen intelligent laymen looking on the 
scene sometimes, and could discover from their 
countenances that they felt they had taken the 
" pill " and were now in the " pit." 

Turning to the pew we find expressions and 
pronunciations there that seem to belong peculiar- 
ly to that part of the church. 

Of course the sayings are not heard in all places, 
and are accentuated according to locality. Still 
there are few preachers but have listened to the ex- 
pressions we now mention, 

" Feelingly and sensibly near." 

This was once an utterance of fire, but the fire 
has receded in most cases, and it is now like an 
extinct crater. It has done great service in its 
time, but the brother who now uses it most in 
his prayer is not most remarkable for spiritual 
warmth himself; and under the mechanical words 
there is no more heat than is felt in a moonbeam. 
It is only one of a number of other prayer phrases 



EXPRESSIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS. II7 

which in the course of time he has picked up and 
strung together. They all have their place and 
never vary. And all of them make one 
prayer. "Feelingly and sensibly" is repeated 
once, twice or thrice in the prayer according to 
the mental furnishing of the one who is supplica- 
ting. 

Another expression from the pew is 
• The bended knee of a perishing humanity.*' 
This quite awed me when I first heard it in my 
youthful days: but in addition it pi a mu- 

sical roll which made one feel like repeating it after 
the first hearing. 

rarely heard these days. The colleges have 
d it into remote regions, and like the Indian 
it will Boon be gone forever. 
Still another is 
• • I! n joying religion." 

As men give up experimental piety, and Church- 

■ formal, this utterance of course be- 

Y< • it is .1 Btrong one, and one we 

ak and hear spoken. We have listened 

:ly men and women as they uttered it with 
shinin: until our soul 

burned within US, and the spiritual palate .streamed 

I 



Il8 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Sometimes in remote neighborhoods we have 
heard it pronounced 

" 'En-Jazv-ing religion." 

And we confess to liking the term, as thus ac- 
cented, still better. The brother looked like he 
was chewing on something good when he said he 
was " JLn-Jaw-ing religion." The author be- 
lieves in a religion that affects the "jaw." O 
how that member works when the fire is burning 
in the soul, and the honey of the gospel is drip- 
ping all over and through the spirit. 

Recently in a Southern State we heard the ex- 
pression — 

7«-tire sanctification." 

The brother who thus pronounced the word en- 
tire, did so with a beaming face. All could see 
that his cup was running over when he said " I 
am enjoying the blessing of ' m-tire ' sanctifica- 
tion." Somehow that little syllable "in" suited 
the writer better than "en." It went to the 
heart, and while a smile sprang to the lip at the 
pronunciation there was a pleased feeling in the 
soul. The accent on the first syllable somehow 
described the experience better than the word it- 
self. Truly it is t'n-tire sanctification." 

In another Southern State not long since we 



EXPRESSIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS. 1 19 

heard a lay brother in a public prayer ask for the 

" In-/fa-ence of the Spirit." 

The emphasis was laid on the second syllable as 
Italicized, and so it was transformed into "flew." 

We liked it and cried out Amen ! The gospel 
once flew ; let it keep flying, let it fly in us, and 
through us to the whole world. Yes, Lord, send 
down the in-//<-:^-ence of the gospel. 

But the climax of strange expressions was 
reached in our Chicago meeting, when some lay 
brother dropping in ever)- other night during the 
prayer service tacked, in a most astonishing way, 
a series of u Ur's " on to the words of his prayer. 
Every second or third word was betailed and 
adorned with this verbal interloper "Ur." He 
prayed that " this meeting-ur, might be blessed- 
ur, and that-ur, the gospel-ur, might be blessed- 
ur, to the good-ur, of every body-ur, and that the 
preacher-ur, might-ur, be clothed-ur, with power- 
ur. that night-ur," etc. 

We fell much moved to tell him that " Ur" be- 
longed to the Chaklees, and if Abraham left it, he 
might afford to do so. Moreover we felt like say- 
ing to him "that-ur, if he did not quit-ur, using 
Chaldrc vrorda-or, in his prayer-ur, that the peo- 
plr-ur, would not understand him-ur, and might 



120 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

get to laughing-ur, and so produce-ur, a good 
deal of harm-ur." 

Surely there was a deep meaning in the Bible 
statement that the beautiful ark of God was 
brought up to Jerusalem on an ox cart and drawn 
by two cows. 

Another memorable saying is "getting through." 

There was a time in our dark, unconverted 
days that we laughed at this expression, which 
was most frequently used by the colored people. 

When mention was made of a penitent or seek- 
er of religion, the question sometimes asked was 
"Did he [or she] get through?" We objected 
in our ignorance of the term, saying that it con- 
veyed the idea of one getting out of the woods, or 
through a hedge or wall. 

The time came when we discovered what all 
realize who seek pardon or purity, that the hedge, 
wall or tangled woods of a thousand spiritual be- 
setments and difficulties were all about the soul, 
and that we were not over them nor through them. 

But when the Saviour suddenly appeared to the 
distracted and fainting soul, and under his touch 
the wall smiled with an open gateway, and the 
hedge revealed a flowery gap, and we stood clear 
out of the woods in a boundless, sunlighted plain 



EXPRESSIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS. 121 

of Christian joy and liberty, we understood then 
as never before the power of the words, " Did you 
get through? '" 

O yes, we got through! And to-day we can- 
not think of it without wanting to shout. 

So the blessed fact remains that there is a mar- 
velous richness of thought, a world of suggestion, 
and a constantly unfolding meaning in certain 
I words and religious sayings, and in the way 
they are accented, whether pronounced by prince 
or pauper. 

There are kaleidoscopic turns and twists in the 
e.\pres> 'urn — 

««Bl . ord." 

Afl it falls from the lips of different speakers it 
an inexhaustibility on the part of the words, 
and bring tant pleasure to the spiritual 

hearer. 

So with the w 

«« Gloryl " 

Who can COUnt the diverse ways this mighty 

■oul-cry has been wept, laughed, whispered, shout- 
ed and thundered forth. 

Olitary cannon; 

thm it becomes the rapid-fire Gatling gun and 

nding damage to the kingdom of 



122 PASTORAL SKETCHES 

darkness. With innumerable variety of utterance, 
while it is the same word, yet is it ever a new word. 

Still another is the shout — 

"Hallelujah!" 

The susceptibility of this word to new and un- 
expected twists of sound and meaning is simply 
amazing. Every modulation of voice, every ris- 
ing and falling inflection of speech, in connection 
with the word, sends a thrill of pleasure through 
us. Some stress the first syllable "Hal" in a 
way that is a benediction to the soul, and others 
bring out the syllable "hi" with a round, sono- 
rous, buglelike note that makes one feel like 
charging an army of devils. 

We once heard a holy woman say that she had 
lived in a single verse of Scripture for a week. It 
struck us at the time as a very surprising state- 
ment. We thought the bread must be very stale 
or quite scarce in a verse after living a week upon 
it. But our surprise has long ago vanished, and 
we have learned that the woman was speaking the 
words of truth and soberness. 

So far from finding a single verse of Scripture 
to be narrow accommodation for the soul and the 
life itself, we have been dwelling in the word 
" Hallelujah " for seven years. It is a marvelously 



EXPRESSIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS. 1 23 

roomy word, with no end of delightful apartments 
of the upper-room order, and a glorious observa- 
tory at the top from which the golden-paved City 
of God is always in full view. So long as we live 
in it, white robes are provided, and a table is pre- 
pared for us in the presence of our enemies; our 
head is daily anointed with oil and our cup runs 
over. Hallelujah ! 

The last expression of the kind we mention is 
the word 

"Amen." 

What a word it is, and how it grows on one the 
deeper dewn we get in Christ, and the nearer we 
draw to heaven. The sea has not as many strik- 
ing, changing and beautiful lights and tints as this 
word, as it comes from the lips, colored and af- 
fected by a hundred different emotions of the spir- 
itual heart. 

We could not count the different ways that we 
have heard it uttered, but we like every pronun- 
ciation that comes from the child of God. Some 
ways of pronouncing the word always bring the 
tears to tin: eves, other wavs make us laugh — the 
religious laugh of course. Still others make the 
feel like he wants to go to heaven and see 
Christ, and others still bring a wave of strength 



124 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

over the heart, and one feels like standing on the 
lonely and difficult picket posts of earth until the 
Saviour comes. 

Sometimes the word is accented so as to make 
a big "A" and a little "men," as follows: 
"A-men." The whole force of the voice is put 
in the first letter, and the last part of the word is 
scarcely heard. 

Sometimes this method is reversed, and we have 
a little "a" and a big " MEN," as for instance, 
"a-MEN." 

Both are good and we heartily commend them 
to the hearing of the Church. 

Recently we heard the word uttered by Eastern 
and Western Methodist brethren. We had thought 
that we understood the word up to the time that 
these two men of God in widely different parts of 
the country got hold of it. We saw at once new 
and greater depths. 

The brother in the East with glowing face would 
say 

"A-men-n-n-n-n ! " and hold on to the last syl- 
lable as if he never intended to let go. It was a 
Garden of Eden to him; he had walked through, 
and was at the gate leaving; but held on to the 
latch hating to go. We thought then, this pro- 



EXPRESSIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS. 125 

ounciation can never be surpassed for sweetness 
and fervor. 

But while in the West lately we heard an old 
brother say "Amen " in another way that fdled 
the soul with pleasure and admiration. 

He threw the accent on the first syllable and said 
"A-a-a-a-a-men ! *' 

It would be difficult to describe how the heart 
•Melted and impressed with that utterance. 
The voice of the old man was trembling and deep- 
ly unctuous; and somehow the eyes got wet, and 
the heart felt like honey was dripping on it, as 
that tremulous "A-a-a-a-a-a-men " came from the 
I saint on the platform. 
The first brother hated to leave the word, while 
'. with an Epicurean delight lingered in 
• r he entered. The first one went into the 
word rapidly and Left slowly; the second entered 
slowly for he did not want to leave at all. Both 
' the back gate, the other at the 

: both in love with what they saw and felt in 
the v. :i." 

camp meeting this summer 

which the author had conducted, among those who 

came to •■ I - i Gi rman woman 

full of religion 'owing. She was low in 



126 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

stature, and broad in a lateral direction. Taking 
my hand, with a face all bright and a voice full, 
rich and fervent she said "Amen! " 

I thought she was going to say " Good-bye," 
but the word that came forth was "Amen." 

Again she said it, and still more fervently, 
"Amen! " 

A third time she shook my hand and with unc- 
tuous voice and tears in her eyes she said again 
"Amen ! " 

It would be impossible to put in print the pecul- 
iar influence and power that came forth from the 
honest soul with the repeated word "Amen." I 
can only say that at the fourth repetition I found 
myself laughing and crying equal to the woman 
and saying "Amen" with her. 

The cab driver was standing near by waiting 
for me to get into the carriage, and doubtless 
thought that he had struck two lunatics in a couple 
of people who did nothing but laugh, cry, shake 
hands, and say "Amen." But he had no idea 
what was in the word, what it meant to us, and 
how much good we were getting out of it. 

So we said "Amen " several times more and 
with a sweet joy in my soul I slipped into the car- 
riage and was driven rapidly away. 



EXPRESSIONS AND PRONUNCIATIONS. I 2J 

•'Amen.' - Blessed word of the Bible and the 
kingdom of grace ! May we all say it to the whole 
sweet will of God, utter it in every sorrow and 
trial, speak it in death, shout it in the morning of 
the resurrection, and on entering heaven say it 
again — "Amen I 

Now we offer the thought, that if these mono- 
syllables of Zion, and portions of religious speech 
be so full of grace and power here, what will they 
be in heaven when the remaining part of the sen- 
tence shall be restored, and the clear light of the 
glory land falling upon them shall reveal still deep- 
er meanings in them all. 

Praise God for what we know of them here, 
and hallelujah for what we shall know and feel 
hereafter in the world to come. 

Let all the people say "Amen." 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW PREACHERS ARE "TAKEN IN." 

T#TO one likes to be " taken in," as the saying 
J^t goes. The mocked or fooled sensation is 
not pleasant. One has several regrets about it; 
first that a fellow-creature should do a wrong 
thing; second that we should have that in our 
appearance which would suggest gullibility, and 
third that we should be gulled. 

It is the general opinion that preachers are the 
most easily duped of all classes. The preachers 
themselves say that it is not so ; that their vocation 
has taught them to study and recognize character; 
and that constant contact with all kinds of people 
has given them rare powers of discrimination. 
Indeed it is reported that one of our bishops cap 
tell a fraud by looking at his shoes. But what if 
the impostor should be barefooted? where thee 
could the bishop look for proof of duplicity? 

We have heard ministers say that they had no 
trouble in reading men. In fact we have said so 
ourselves, although every time we made the re- 
mark in the presence of a certain lady who bear* 
(128) 



HOW PRJBACHBRS ARE "TAKEN IX. 1 29 

our name, we have discovered a roguish ami 
amused look that we did not altogether relish. 

We doubt not it sounds very well, these speech- 
■ ut reading people through and through at a 
glance: but there are two things that it would be 
well for US to remember. One is that there are 
all k:. "is upon our credulity, and 

even ir. There are " takings 

in " ci a Bimple nature and some are compound: 
some are run on the jocular, some on the lachry- 
and still others on the religious line. Until 
we have been tooled well on each one, we can 
hardly be said to be sufficiently wise and knowing 
to pose as a judge of such matters. 

Another thing to remember is that the impostor 
lierally a judge of men and character. The 

tramp who is considered at the bottom of this 

Q8tration of this tact, as is seen In- 
peculiar marks and characters hi- leaves on gates 
ami doors, that translated by the knowing means 
" walk in and help yourself." One oi" these Eng- 
lish highway citizen- lo8t his pocket wallet | not 

In ; : v.as Borne interesting infor- 
mation for lii- I ell as the citizens that he 
dupe. ( me page was headed 
with t: "Soft Tommie •" Among the 



I30 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

names that composed this list was that of Chas. H. 
Spurgeon. So while we read them, they read us. 

There was a time when this deponent thought 
he could not be deceived. He took a joy in re- 
garding himself as a rapid and correct reader of 
character. But the opinion of all his friends and 
especially his family is against him in this regard, 
and he does not boast as much now as he former- 
ly did. 

If he then is one of the gullibles, that is a mail 
easily taken in, how can it be accounted for in 
view of his own convictions to the contrary. Does 
not a man know himself? 

We have a great way of going back these days, 
in order to find out who and what our ancestors 
were in order to thoroughly understand ourselves. 
It is certainly in cases of weakness, infirmity, and 
other deplorable things very soothing to our spir- 
itual vanity to find these failures and flaws in some 
old ancestor we never saw, and so be able to 
shovel the responsibility on him, while we go free. 
Alas for the ancestors on the day of judgment. 

Suppose for instance I should find in my father 
what my friends laugh at in me. Then must the 
laugh cease and the gullibility is found to be an 
inheritance and no fault of mine. 



HOW PREACHERS ARK "TAKEN IN." 1^1 

It seems from what I can learn about my lather 
who died when I was six years oi age, that he 
was possessed of an exceedingly tender heart, 
and had an amazing faculty of being hood- 
winked by people who had well-memorized tales 
of sorrow. 

One lady in particular had repeatedly raided his 
pocket book through the narration of a sorrowful 
family history. On learning afterwards that he 
hail been more generous than wise in her case, 
my lather would resolve to guard himself in the fu- 
ture and not be taken in again by that individual. 

After B high-sounding speech of this character 
by him one day, the lady in question was seen 
coming up the road toward our house. 

•• Now Brother Frank '" said one of my aunts 
to him " Get your handkerchief ready. Mrs. 
Blank is coming for another onslaught on your 
feelings and pUT 

•• N( > (aimed my father. " She has 

shown herself unworthy by her ingratitude, and 

will find me lik<- east iron in her present 
At this Bpeech there was a general smile from 

my mother and aunts. 

In a few moment! came a Bervant saying that 
>i: . Blank desired to see my father at the front 



132 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

gate. Off he went as stiff as a ramrod amidst 
the suppressed smiles of the family and a signifi- 
cant shaking of pocket handkerchiefs. They had 
seen the ramrod demeanor before, and had also 
seen it become a string repeatedly. All watched 
him through the window blinds, and as the inter- 
view proceeded had to hold on to each other. 

At first my father was very dignified. Then 
they could see signs of wavering in the lines: for 
the woman was gifted in speech and knew how 
to lay on the colors in pathetic style to suit a man 
with the tender heart of my father. All could see 
that she was winning her way; and so by and by 
the two came walking side by side up the long 
walk toward the house. She continued to talk 
while her white hand held back the black crape 
veil, and she bent forward to see what additional 
argument she could make to complete the victory. 
Victory it undoubtedly was for her, for all could 
see that my father's artillery had been parked, 
his cavalry dismounted, and the infantry dis- 
charged from service. He had evidently shot his 
last gun. Nothing was left but the baggage train, 
which, by the way, was all that Mrs. Blank 
wanted. 

Suddenly as the woman poured one more 



HOW PREACHERS ARE "TAKEN IN. 133 

touching fact into his ears, my father all forgetful 
that the family were looking at him through the 
shutters, sank clown on a scat near the walk, 
bowed his face in his handkerchief and wept. 

Of course the wagon was loaded with pro- 
visions after that and sent to Mrs. Blank's resi- 
dence: and ray father returning to the family cir- 
cle gravely told my mother and aunts 

11 That the case this time was very peculiar." 

All of which they believed beforehand, and 
Lropped their heads with that distressingly 
amused look. 

Perhaps I obtained a spark of gullibility from 
my lather: or perhaps the calling of the preacher 
h that he is ready to look for penitents, and 
. e prodigals, and so is slow from his very vo- 
cation or work of love to suspect any one. We 

fear that the thing is too deep for us. We also re- 
member that our family and friends say that it is 
able lor any one to " take U8 in." 

And so a certain lady tellfl this upon her preach- 
er husband: lit no one ,i4; for names. She says 

that on.- day a tramp called at tin- church study 

and a !■.•<! lor a dime to gel some food. The 
prea< her having nothing less than halt a dollar 
in his pockel handed it to the tramp, telling him to 



134 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

get it changed on the street and to hurry back, 
that his office hour was up and he had to leave. 
The tramp disappeared promptly. About a hali 
hour later a gentleman, one of the stewards of 
the Church, dropped into the study on some piece 
of business and to his surprise found the preacher 
there, long after his office hours. 

" Why," he said, " I had no idea of finding you 
here at this time of day. What's the matter? " 

The innocent reply of the preacher brought out 
a burst of laughter from the steward. Said the 
preacher: 

"A tramp asked me for a dime, and I gave him 
a half dollar to get changed, and I have been 
waiting for him to come back with the change be- 
fore I leave." 

The steward fairly shook as he said 

"Are you going to wait until that tramp returns 
with the money? " 

Light seemed to dawn on the preacher's mind 
at this time, and with a look of decidedly mixed 
expression he replied 

11 I believe I will go now." 

All this prepares us for the following bit of life 
drama that took place with that same ministerial 
individual. 



HOW PRBACHBRS ARK "TAKEN IN. I35 

While Bitting at the dinner table one day, the 
door bell rung, and a card was brought in by z. 
servant to the preacher with these words evidently 
written hastily 

Sir: Can i see jrou a lew moments In jour office at 
the church at anv hour you mav please to appoint on a matter 
which is greatly disturbing me. I am ■ Jew and want light. 
trull; Josxra Kramer. 

The preacher Bent word by a servant giving the 
hour when he would be at his study. 

Promptly at the time appointed came a humble 
apologetic knock at the door. It seemed to ask 
pardon for doing BO and requested special consid- 
eration. The preacher said "Come in " and there 
appeared on the threshold a young Israelite of 
about twenty-six years of age. 

He drew near with a deprecating gesture at dis- 
turbing the minister and said with strong Jewish 
'. that he craved a lew minutes interview 
upon a most important subject which disturbed his 

The preacher who bad arisen with an expectant 

air, at( oftened and int. Tested expres- 

• disturbed peace." 

Tin- Israelite saw the relaxed look, and humbly 
and politely drew nearer, and at the kind request 



I36 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

of the preacher took a seat on the sola near his 
side. 

"What can I do for you, sir?" the minister 
asked, with his eyes fixed upon the young man. 

The Jew with the unmistakable accent of his 
nationality began by expressing his regret at tak- 
ing up the valuable time of the "Doctaire;" but 
that he felt that he must have light and relief for 
mind and heart, and so had come to speak with 
him and get advice, no matter how that act would 
estrange his own people from him, nor what suf- 
fering it would entail in that direction. 

He had been led he said into the light of Chris- 
tianity by reading the Bible. That he had given 
his heart to Christ and was now a saved man. But 
in reading the Book of Jeremiah lately he had be- 
come convicted more deeply and felt the necessity 
of being baptized, and joining some Christian 
Church. He had selected the church of the 
preacher before him in preference to all the other 
churches in the city — " Would the Doctor consent 
to baptize him and receive him into his church on 
the Sunday after the next.'' 

Would he? Of course he would. Why here 
was the beginning of the " Return of the Jews." 
Here already was fulfillment of prophecy. The 



HOW PREACHERS ARE "TAKEN IN. 137 

'•fullness of the Gentiles" was certainly felt to 

have: taken place in one heart: and so the preach- 
er extended his hand and with a cordial grasp told 
the lonelv Jew that he would gladly baptize and 
receive him into the church he had mentioned. 

The Israelite, Mr. Kramer, confirmed his claims 
upon the confidence of the preacher by showing 
him a diploma "l his graduation in a colle 
Germany. There was a curious erasure ami re- 
writing of the tlate observable on the parchment, 
but the preacher thought little of it at the time. 
He thought a good deal moie about it BOme days 
later. 

All this was followed up by an imitation to .Mr. 
Kramer to take dinner at his house the next day. 

A the preacher walked home he had pleasant 

thoughts «>i tin- religious notoriety this whole affair 

would give his church. It was not only a blow to 

h unbelief, but a great victory for the Gen- 
spiritual triumph for the 
preacher's own church, Berving to show to a large 

city the spiritual supremacy oi his own congrega- 
tion over all th.- other churches, in tint a convert- 
ed Jew came al b.u r ' 11 and member- 
ship. 

1 a good humor with him 



I38 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

self, with his church, and with everybody else 
when he told his wife that a converted Israelite 
would dine with them on the morrow. 

Exactly at the time appointed, Mr. Kramer ap- 
peared. The ladies at first were disposed to be 
suspicious and unusually dignified, but under the 
bland influence of the recovered Jew, who himself 
began to open like a flower, they soon unbent and 
became as gracious as the young descendant of 
Jacob. 

He paid some very tasteful compliments to the 
ladies, in regard to the meal, the arrangement of 
the room, and several other things. The fact that 
the praise was not fulsome, but very delicately and 
happily expressed, made his remarks go home. 
He was quick to pass what was wanted by them, 
without being offensive or burdensome in his table 
attentions. 

The ladies smiled and he continued to unfold. 
It was no ordinary social flower we had at the 
table but a century plant. He lamented that he 
could not express himself with that perfect felicity 
of accent that he so admired in American ladies. 
He spoke three languages, he said, quite fluently; 
and as one of these was French and one of the 
ladies at the table spoke it with ease, it greatly 



HOW PREACHERS ARE "TAKEN IX. I39 

helped our confidence in and opinion of him to 
hear him launch out in the Gallic language in corn- 
pan}- with the aforesaid lady. 

However after a few minutes he very politely 
returned to America and the society of those of us 
who were so commonplace that we could only en- 
dure the burden of one tongue. This also pleas- 
antly impressed us. 

It was however in the narration of his European 
travels, and brief but piquant description of the 
Continental capitals that he showed to best ad- 
vantage. A> he had seen and heard some of the 
great masters "i song over there, that fact secured 
still deeper attention from the ladies who were all 
musical. 

Mr. Kramer did not speak of Jeremiah through 
the entire meal. 

1 her however sat in great satisfaction 
listening to this i ession to the gospel, and 

saw in the dim future this gifted descendant »it 
Abraham transformed into a flaming Methodist 
preacher, who would be another Mo es or Joshua 

D people into Chris- 
tianity. He in himself introducing 
Mi . Kramer al the Coni to the brethren 
;md feeKn whole occurrence 



I4O PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

would give to that year's pastorate. He also saw 
as in a vision two or three hundred converted Jews 
in his church by another year. It would not have 
been difficult for him that day to have written a 
treatise on " The Recovery of the Ten Lost 
Tribes." 

After dinner, and in the act of leaving Mr. 
Kramer requested the privilege of another inter- 
view at the study, which was cordially granted. 
The ladies all came to the door to say adieu to the 
visitor. 

The second interview proved to be of a business 
character. Jeremiah again was not mentioned. 
The young man with a burst of candor said he 
wanted the Doctor to know that he was of ex- 
cellent family and standing. Whereupon he drew 
out a package of letters that looked considerably 
worn, among which was the "diploma" that 
looked like it had been opened and folded a great 
many times. As the letters were mostly written in 
German and French the preacher was not much 
the wiser for their contents. 

Having returned the papers to his pocket, Mr. 
Kramer with the most engaging and open demeanor 
said he felt that he must preach the gospel: that 
the burden was upon him: he could not fly from 



HOW PREACHERS ARK "TAKEN IN. I4I 

it. But, he added, that he must prepare lor the 
ministry. lie did not want to be an ignoramus 
in this matter, but a teacher who could command 
the attention and respect of his people. lie plain- 
ly saw that lie must go to a theological college, but 
would like to take up a course of religious reading 
beforehand, and through the reading ami attend- 
ance upon his Church duties familiarize himself 
with the people and the denomination to which he 

ted allying himself. That he knew the step 
he intended taking would result in his being utter- 

I oil by his family, friends and nation, and 

aid have to support himself. This he said 
he intended doing. He was young, strong, ener- 
getic and wanted to prove his religious life and in- 
tegrity. He must take care of himself and felt 

aid do it. In looking around, however, he 

saw that every avenue was closed to him for lack 

pital. There was one bU8ineSS however, that 

he perfectly understood. It was the " spectacle 

lb- understood all about glasses from 
the finest pebble down, and with the small invest- 
ment 1 1 ould purchase a line of 
taclea and bo obtain a living 
without burdening anybody. 

Jilt then asked him how much would 



I42 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

be necessary to secure the stock that was desired. 
To which with a thoughtful face Mr. Kramer re- 
plied 

" Seven dollars and fifty cents." 

The preacher put his hand in his pocket and 
counted out the money. 

Mr. Kramer was so touched and taken back by 
this kind act, and quick solving of the problem of 
his support, that he could at first scarcely speak„ 
But controlling himself and pressing the preach- 
er's hand he speedily left to purchase the stock of 
spectacles and get at once to business. 

The next morning while the preacher was in his 
study, Mr. Joseph Kramer suddenly entered the 
office without knocking and with great signs of 
excitement, 

" Please pardon my unceremonious entrance," 
he said almost breathlessly, "but I am in great 
trouble and have run down here to see you about 
it.** 

" What is the matter Mr. Kramer? '" asked the 
preacher with genuine interest and solicitude. 

" Well sir," replied the young Jew moving rest- 
lessly about the office, " I bought the stock of 
spectacles yesterday, and this morning I started 
out and had sold three pair, when a policeman 



HOW PREACHERS ARE " TAKEN IN. I43 

pounced down on me and asked where was my 
license to peddle on the street. I told him I had 
none, and Doctor, he wanted to take me off to 
the station house, when T begged him to let me 
run down here and .see a friend about it, and he 
tnted, and I have run almost every step of the 
way to tell you and ask you what is to be done." 

" There is nothing to be done," said the preach- 
er, "but to pay the license. What is the cost of 
it?" 

••Two dollars and fifty cents" said Joseph 
Kranu-r with downcast e' 

Without another word the preacher went down 
into hit pocket and brought up the amount, hand- 
ing it to the Jew and bidding him go quickly and 
pay the authorities and prosecute his business here- 
after without any more mental worry or tear of in- 
terruption. 

Mr. Kramer needed do Becond bidding, but 

with warm e\j I gratitude, he darted off 

in the direction from which he came. All the 

QOOD the preacher With B warm feeling about 

isionfl of Mr. Kramer selling spec- 

by the dozen, and fitting eyeglasses on the 

noses of m • e-afflicted people. 

- rolled by and Mr. Kramer did not return. 



144 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

He was not in the church on the following Sunday 
to the surprise of the pastor, for he properly 
thought the young man ought not to lose a single 
sermon in his commendable desire to obtain all 
light and knowledge possible. 

In the middle of the second week and only a few 
days before the Sabbath on which the baptism and 
reception of the young convert was to take place, 
Mr. Kramer had not yet returned. 

The preacher, however, made a number of ex- 
cuses. He supposed that the absentee had been so 
busy selling spectacles that he had not been able 
to come to the study during the week; and per- 
haps was so tired from his labors of the week, that 
he had remained at home to rest on the Sabbath. 

One Saturday morning at the end of the second 
week, a clergyman of the Episcopal Church in the 
city was announced by the sexton as a caller. As 
the two preachers already knew each other no in- 
troduction was needed, and a pleasant, chat of a 
minute or so was indulged in. 

After a little the clergyman said, 

" The object of my visit this morning is to find 
out if you know a Mr. Joseph Kramer, a convert- 
ed Jew. I heard he had been visiting you, and I 
am anxious to discover his whereabouts." 



HOW PREACHERS ARK " TAKEN IN." 145 

" Yes .Mr," replied the preacher, " I know Mr. 
Kramer. He is to be baptized and received into 
my church to-morrow morning." 

" Why sir," exclaimed the clerg}-man with wide- 
open eyes, " he was to have been baptized and re- 
ceived into my church last Sabbath ! " 

•• I- it possible," replied the preacher. " There 
must be some mistake about it. There must be 
another Mr. Joseph Kramer." 

" Hardly" Baid the clergyman. "Is your Mr. 
Kramer a young man about twenty-six with black 
hair and eye.-, ami a soft way of talking, and with 
decidedly pleasing wav> : " 

"That's the man," was the preacher's reply, 
and he quite impressed the ladies of my family 
with his gentlemanly manner." 

•• Well BO he did mine" rejoined the clergyman 
with a musing air: "This is certainly my Mr. 
Kraii: 

"A- the da " sallied the preacher, " he 

' »e neither yours nor mine." 

this the clergyman made no response, but 
with an air of deep thought he said 

"Did he show you some old letters ami a 

diplom 



I46 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

"Did he say anything about Jeremiah, and be- 
ing troubled about baptism? " 

11 O yes; he could not rest he said on account 
of what he had read in Jeremiah. That his peace 
had been greatly disturbed." 

" Well sir," flamed out the clergyman, " he had 
better have his peace disturbed by other chapters 
and words in the Bible I could tell him about. 
Why sir the man is a fraud." 

" Hear so," was the preacher's troubled answer. 

"And he said he wanted to join my Church, the 
Episcopal, above all Churches, and wanted me to 
baptize him in preference to all other preachers." 

"He said the same thing exactly to me," was 
the preacher's response. 

The two men stood loo"king at each other in si- 
lence for a few moments, and the clergyman asked 
in a lowered voice 

" Did he tell you that he wanted to go into the 
spectacle business in order not to be dependent on 
his friends and thereby prove his character and 
integrity? " 

"Those were his very words," echoed the 
preacher. 

"Did he ask you for help to buy the stock he 
wanted?" 



HOW PREACHERS ARE " TAKEN I.N. I47 

" He told me that he needed just $7.50." 

" Why, that is the very amount that he got out 
of me," said the clergyman, striking the table 
with the palm of his hand. "And yet," he added, 
"not all; for several days after I had raised him 
the $7.50 he came rushing back to me one morn- 
ing anil said that he was about to be arrested down 
town lor selling spectacles without a license; and 
I borrowed S2.50 more for the slick- tongued 
scoundrel." 

•• I did the same thing for him," put in the 
preacher, with a halt - melancholy, hall- amused 
look. 

•• Why. sir. the man is a rascal," gasped the 

clergyman. 

'•So it Beems," answered his companion in mis- 
fortune. 

"And lie told me." resumed the man of the 
white surplice. " that he could not rest on account 
of what he had read in Jeremiah. And there I 
expounding Jeremiah to him by the hour." 

" He has evidently fooled both of us badly," 
qtlOth the preacher. 

Then followed a tableau. 

men stood looking at each other lor fully a 
minute, the clergy man with corrugated brow, and 



I48 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

the preacher with working mouth, and with diffi- 
culty keeping back an explosion of laughter. 

" What shall we do? " asked Rev. Mr. Surplice. 

"Nothing," replied the preacher. "There is 
nothing to do, for we are already undone." 

"But should we not stop the impostor: he will 
bleed every pastor in the land as he has done us." 

"How can you stop him?" was the quick re- 
ply, " he is doubtless far away now." 

" I'll publish him in the city press and head 
him off, and make it hot for him wherever he 
goes," said the clergyman; and away he went on 
his benevolent mission. 

In due time the papers came out with a flaming 
account of how two ministers in the city had been 
bamboozled and fleeced by an enterprising Jew 
who had passed himself off as a convert to the 
Christian faith, saying that he had been led to it 
by reading Jeremiah. That he had succeeded in 
obtaining certain sums of money from the rever- 
end gentlemen, both of whom expected to baptize 
and receive him into the Church. But the convert 
had " turned up missing," and the preachers were 
minus ten dollars apiece, together with a great 
deal of wholesome instruction and sympathy, 
which they had bestowed on the Wandering Jew. 



HOW PREACHERS ARE " TAKEN EX. I49 

Several days alter this publication, the papers 
of an adjoining city had a column with large head- 
ings in which the public was informed that the Rev. 
Mr. Wideawake of that city had come ven 
being taken in by a young Jew who had called at 
the rectory and said that he was a convert to the 
Christian faith ; that he had been much disturbed 
ding Jesemiah, and wanted to be baptized 
in Dr. Wideawake's Church which he preferred 
above all others. He had gotten this far in his 
story, said the paper, when Dr. Wideawake reaeh- 
>und took up a New Orleans paper and said, 
"Allow me to read you a lew paragraphs from 

Orleans paper before I answer you." 
So he began with the headlines. 

TWO CITY PREACHERS 

BAMBOOZLED 

AND FLEECED 

BY A YOUNG JEW 

cl \imi\<; 

- 1 BE A 

CHRIST] W CONVERT. 

TWENTY DOLLARS TAKEN 

AND 

Till-; JEW SKIPPED TO 

PARTS I'XKXOWN, 



I50 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

This was as far as Dr. Wideawake read; for 
the next instant he heard quick retreating steps, 
the door banged, and the man who was so much 
disturbed by the writings of Jeremiah was gone. 

********* 

In due time the news of the double "take in" 
of the Episcopal and Methodist pastors was gener- 
ally known. So when the latter took his seat at 
the dinner table he saw by the suppressed mirth 
and other unmistakable signs around the table that 
the family knew all about his being victimized the 
twentieth time that year, and with anticipated en- 
joyment were getting ready to make a general at- 
tack upon his gullibility. 

Therefore with arch looks the ladies said, 

" So Mr. Kramer has given up the spectacle 
business? " 

Whereupon the preacher turning to them said 
in a very significant manner, 

"Yes: by the way what a pleasant impression 
Mr. Kramer made upon you in his vivid descrip- 
tion of the foreign cities he had visited, and prom- 
inent people he had seen." 

Immediately the ladies looked grave, and even 
chagrined. The preacher felt his advantage, and 
so did the ladies. 



HOW PREACHERS ARE "TAKEN IN.'* 151 

So there is one "take in" about which there 
seem? to be a treaty of peace, arrangement, or 
kind of mutual understanding that it shall not be 
mentioned. Other ''take ins" are referred to 
with considerable relish by the family. But when 
Mr. Kramer's name is mentioned with a sly glance 
at the Doctor at the head of the table ; or the ques- 
tion is put to the preacher in plain terms whether 
he has found anybody lately who seems troubled 
over the Book of Jeremiah; the preacher with a 
dry accent and peculiar twinkle in his eye, begins 
to speak of the beauty of certain foreign cities, 
when at once the ladies become abstracted, and 
do not seem to understand his remarks. 

In a word, as we have said before, a treat) <>l 

■ or mutual understanding seems to have 

sprung up to the effect that Joseph Kramer the 

Wandering Jew shall not be mentioned any more. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE CONFERENCE LETTER. 

tOOD morning Doctor.' 
" Good morning my brother. What can I 
do for you ? ' ' 

" Well sir, I am on my way to Conference; and 
the editor of the "Jericho Advocate has requested 
me to write up the proceedings for his paper. But 
I so feel my incompetency as a young preacher 
that I thought I would drop by and ask you to 
give me a few pointers." 

" Well my dear brother you have asked a hard 
thing, but I am willing to do what I can for you." 

Here the Doctor became very thoughtful and 
introspective for a while, and then lifting up his 
head, asked the young preacher to jot down or 
impress on his memory the following hints. 

"It is not every one," pursued the Doctor, 
" who can write up a Conference. Many essay 
to do it, but all are not successful and all are not 
equally happy even in success. It takes wisdom 
and experience to achieve the best result. It re- 
quires that many things should be unobserved and 

(152) 



THE CONFERENCE LETTER. 153 

unwritten. In fact it is considered the part of 
highest wisdom nut to mention some things. 

•• It is not so much" went on the Doctor medi- 
tatively '* a record of everything that is wanted, 
presentation to the public of those 
icceptable and agreeable. For in- 
stance an unitiated correspondent would make a 
woeful mistake in saying that two of the brethren 
ie angry in a debate on a certain resolution. 
ntioned at all it Bhould be that ' Brother A 
with great animation ' and - Brother B 
held up hifl Bide of the question with equal zeal 
and ability.' 

grain if the minutes say that a brother located 
at his own request, it would not do to go behind 
that and tell of an interview with a presiding eld- 
r relate some piece of history that could not 
OOCiled with the expression 'at his own re- 
ill another feature of the letter is that it must 
be purely optimistic. It will not do to lament or 
Ci inference letter DO matter what has, 

or is happening. I >id you ever notice the fate of the 
Conference on the state of the Church? 
Tint when -Mine innocent, simple-minded and rig- 
idly truthful brother has held up the troubles and 



154 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

dangers of the Church, etc., at once the report 
with all its "whereases" and "be it resolveds " 
is flown at, and torn to pieces and remanded to 
the committee room? " 

" Yes sir, I have " said the young preacher. 

"This fate of the report" said the Doctor 
" gives you an idea of what will befall your Con- 
ference letter if you record such gloomy news as 
that the leading churches in the Conference have 
had no revivals in ten years: that certain promi- 
nent preachers have not witnessed a conversion in 
twenty years ; that one hundred preachers report- 
ed for twelve months' work a net gain to the 
Church of fifty members. This you see would 
not do, as it is mortifying to Church pride, and 
strikes at not only the one hundred men, but at 
the whole Connection." 

"But what shall I say if this is really the 
case? " 

The Doctor smiled at Brother Verdant's ques- 
tion and replied 

"The escape is in such a sentence as this — 
' The preachers have all been at their posts, and 
were never so hopeful about the work of the next 
year.' This at once turns the attention from 
present facts and figures, and fixes the eye upon 



THE CONFERENCE LETTER. 155 

the rosv future that beautiful dreamland in which 
so many marvelous things take place before we get 
there. And it also saves the letter from the pessi- 
mistic tone which is so dispiriting to the soul. 

•• To be a successful Conference letter writer, 
not simply ink but honey and oil must flow from 
vour pen. You must be able to compliment 
everything and everybody without giving the ap- 
pearance of ' tallying.' Physiologists will tell 
vou that the human body can take in a vast 
amount of sugar. It abounds in our food, and 
whv not in a Conference letter? 

"Again it' the town in which the Conference is 
held happens to have a high school or some kind 
of a male or female collegiate institute: it is well 
that .-aid town 18 the Athens of the State or 
that part of the country. Remark incidentally that 
: i/ens are evidently an intelligent and culti- 
vated body Of people. The high school or insti- 
tute is supposed either to be the cause or the re- 
sult Of that fact. Do not Bay which, but leave the 
le to work out the problem. The solution 

either way is pleasant." 
•• Yes sir, I see* 1 

••In regard to the sermons and addresses de- 
liver- (1 during the Conference session, the state- 



I56 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

ment should be made that the speaker measured 
up fully to his past splendid record, or that the 
preacher ' surpassed himself.' It would never do 
to say that he surpassed others, for that would make 
only one man feel comfortable, and cause the rest 
a certain measure of pain and mortification. But 
the expression he ' surpassed himself ' is perfect- 
ly harmless, for while it is felt to be praise for the 
preacher alluded to, at the same time it is no dis- 
praise or reflection upon any one else. In the 
statement he ' surpassed himself ' you will ob- 
serve he surpasses no one but himself, and so no 
one can be offended. This we regard as a real 
Columbus discovery, and we have thought of tak- 
ing out a patent right on it." 

The young preacher smiled brightly and know- 

in gty- 

" Concerning the pastor, who is so to speak the 
host of the Conference, say that he entertained 
delightfully, that under his wise management every 
preacher was made to feel that he had the best 
home, and conclude the reference to him by say- 
ing that he is greatly beloved by his people, and is 
doing a great work. You had best not mention 
what the * great work ' is, but leave that to the 
imagination of the reader. 



THE CONFERENCE LETTER. 157 

"About the presiding elder of the district, say 
that he IS a wide-awake man, loyal to the Church, 
and progressive. You know you never saw him 
asleep, and so you can truthfully sav he is wide- 
awake ; and as he is all the time going around the 
district he must be a progressive man. You might 
also say that there is capital bishop timber in him. 
lie will always feel kindlv to vou lor the utter- 
ance.'' 

"But" interrupted Brother Verdant, "is not 
the expression ' capital bishop timber in him ' a 
straining of the truth ? " 

** Not at all " was the reply. "This does not 
mean that he will ever be a bishop, but that we 
see in him the same Btllff that we see in bishops. 
Then you know there is much timber in the Con- 
ference ready to be made up into bishops. It is 
true there is much timber in the woods that is 
made up into houses; and there is more 
timber in tin: trees to-day than there is in the 

.1 reflections, solemn to 
some in tlu-ir application, but very comforting to 
other people." 

ither Verdanl laughed. 

'he presiding bishop that he was urbane 
anil yet dignified, or dignified and yet kind, as it 



150 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

these qualities rarely ever met in an individual. 
Say also that the bishop in his administrative abil- 
ity thoroughly justified the choice of the General 
Conference in electing him to this high and first 
office of the Church. That he kept the business 
of the Conference well in hand, losing no time and 
yet neglecting no interest of the Church. That he 
preached two of his grandest sermons, that were 
intellectual feasts to his audience. Do not mention 
the texts as the bishop intends using them on his 
entire round. In regard to his address to the 
class for admission into the Conference, say that 
it was one never to be forgotten. Add that he 
captured the entire Conference and that nothing 
would please its members more than to have him 
return. Conclude the reference with the words: 

" Come again bishop." 

" In regard to the visiting connectional brethren 
representing the different Boards of the Church, 
say that they charmed and carried away the Con- 
ference. That these brethren are the right men 
in the right place. That all regretted that they 
could not stay longer, but had to rush away to meet 
other Conferences. 

" In personal mention of editors and college 
presidents, it is well to put in the adjectives after 



THE CONFERErsXE LETTER. 159 

a double-barrel manner. For instance, the genial 
and learned editor 01 the Antioch Advocate; and 
the dignified and scholarly President of the Meso- 
potamia and Abel-meholah Female Collegiate In- 
stitute. 

••In mentioning the Conference noteworthies 
never fail to put in a descriptive adjective before 
the name of the brother. If he is an aged super- 
annuate. Bay the venerable A. B. C. If quite a 
the promising D. E. F." 

" We have just culled from one of the Christian 
Advocates of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
South iph of personal mention at a Dis- 

trict Conference by a Conference letter writer. 

Kactly as it appeared in the paper. 
••The genial Dr. \\\. the suave Dr. M., the 
jocund and diligent Rev. I. W., the sprightly Rev. 
T. !'•., the portly and dignified Rev. T. II. and the 
stirring Rev. R. W.. were all on hand." 

•• For fear you will lack for adjectives I present 
yen a kind oi glossary of complimentary terms, 
with the article •the' before each bo that all you 

will ha the name of the brother 

Ijective thai you think will best de- 
Bcribe him or better still, that will best please 
him." 



l6o PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

The Glossary. 

The brilli' t. 

The sparkling-. 

The eloquent. 

The logical. 

The profound. 

The witty. 

The charming. 

The accomplished. 

The learned. 

The dignified. 

The able. 

The scholarly. 

The gifted. 

The polished. 

" This you will readily see is far better than 
such a list as the following. 

The ignorant. 

The conceited 

The ordinary. 

The unknown. 

The snappish. 

etc., etc., etc. 

" It would be well to speak of the ' personnel ' 
of the Conference. Say that it would be hard to 
find a finer-looking and more intelligent body of 



THE CONFERENCE LETTER. l6l 

men. This will please the Conference, and at the 
same time does not reduce other Conferences to 
despair, because you do not say that another such 
body of men could not be found, but would be 
hard to find. Moreover, they remember that you 
have never seen their Conference and so forgive 
your ignorance. Meantime you have pleased the 
Jericho Conference." 

" Finally as to the appointments, state that 
everybody seemed to get the very place they 
wanted, and went off happy and rejoicing. Then 
indulge in a paragraphic laudation of the wonderful 
spectacle of one hundred preachers not knowing 
where they would be assigned for the next year, 
quietly receiving their appointments and going 
forth without a murmur to their new fields. Do not 
say that over hall knew where they were going be- 
forehand. And in regard to the statement that 
'all went to their new fields happy and rejoicing,' 
st not to tell how Brown groaned, Jones wept, 
ibin8on raved and tore up the ground! 

•• you will find numerous results flowing from 
this kind of letter writing. 

First you will be asked to write again. 

ond you will soon be regarded as a safe, 

level-headed and conservative man. 
11 



l62 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Third you will be elected a member of the Con- 
ference Managing Committee of the Jericho Ad- 
vocate, which is a great honor for a young man. 
Some preachers have lived to be eighty years of 
age, longing for this promotion. They saw it afar 
off, were persuaded of it, would have embraced 
it, but died without the promise or the fulfillment. 

A fourth and last result of the letter which you 
have written will be that when you return home 
and get still before God, you will have to repent 
and do considerable praying. You will feel a 
mistiness gathering in your religious experience, 
and will have to promise to write more truthfully 
the next time and so will after awhile regain the 
lost sweetness of your soul. 

But if you have to write another Conference 
letter, you will feel drawn again to write just as 
you did before; and so you will go on until at last 
without any peculiar pain or compunction you will 
throw oft" these letters with great ease, rapidity, 
and even enjoyment, feeling that such epistles are 
the best and wisest, and that you are actually do- 
ing God sendee. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Tin. CONFERENCE COLLEGE. 

iOiOLLEGES are numerous these days. Phi- 
\jy lanthropists build them, States endow them, 
cities ask and bid for them, and as for an Annual 
Conference it will have them. 

It is a piece of property that is felt to be a prop- 
er and essential equipment as well as ornamenta- 
tion for such a religious body. A Conference is 
hardly supposed to lift up its head, and take a dig- 
nified stand before the world until it can have at 
. and even more than one of these seats 
OS learning. 

The man is always to be found who has twenty 
Of ground to donate On the edge of some re- 
mote village. Then comes the other equally well- 
:i brother with the proposition that he will 
give fifty dollars to the endowment fund if one 
ind other individuals will do the same. 
All this is felt by the brethren to be providential 
. and so the land is accepted, and then 
.1 to the Conference with the distinct under- 
standing that it' it i ised for any other pur- 
it shall revert to the donor or his h( 



164 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

These colleges of the Conference are all won- 
derfully alike in some important particulars. Moat 
of them are in inaccessible places. And all of 
them are in a financially languishing condition. A 
third similarity is that each annual report an- 
nounces the fact that said college has just started, 
or is about to start, upon a career of prosperity 
unparalleled by anything in its previous history. 
These last two features are invariably found in the 
Conference college. 

A fourth similarity is that they all have fine 
names; long, euphonious, high-sounding and im- 
pressive. No single name is felt to be sufficient 
to herald forth the future excellence and achieve- 
ments of these institutes, so that they nearly all 
have double names. Or if but one, that name 
must represent some remarkable character, or 
some notable epoch in Church history. 

An additional likeness is seen in the fact that 
every one need " coddling." Just as the baby of 
the house is taken up, greased, wrapped in flan- 
nel, its feet warmed at the fire, and then trotted 
or rocked until it is quiet; so must the Conference 
college be treated. Every year it is taken out of 
its flannels, scrutinized carefully, greased and 
warmed bv the Conference fire, rolled up again 



THE CONFERENCE COLLEGE. 165 

in lined and padded "resolutions," and with a 
sugar tit or milk bottle in the way of big promises 
stuck, in its mouth, the ailing thing is put back to 
bed for another twelve months' rest or sleep. 

Thus treated repeatedly, it gets to liking and 
then demanding this kind of coddling. It is not 
happy if it is not brought out and trotted on the 
ecclesiastical knee. It loves to hear its list of ail- 
ments enumerated by the old Conference mothers 
who take special interest in its past diseases and 
future perils. If the coddling does not come, and 
it ifl not trotted on the knee, and warmed and 
rubbed, the institute begins to kick and bawl 
aloud about it, and says in its sobs that " nobody 
cares for it." It is a spectacle never to be for- 
gotten to see the Conference mothers in the form 
of committees with spectacles on their eyes exam- 
ining the institute, writing up and cataloguing its 
varioi: of colic, indigestion, weakness, 

dizziness, wind, swoons, paralysis, ami other mel- 
ly afflictions that have Bwooped down upon 
nference infant. But the *• mothers" with 

that the darling little pet has lived 
Igfa them all. That they now know of but a 
I more thing! "I .1 direful nature that could 

befall the institute, ami escaping these, tin 



I06 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

nothing to prevent an "unparalleled course of 
prosperity." This last hopeful sentence always 
moves everybody, and the educational foundling 
is returned to its cradle with general approving 
nods and smiles, and the bold affirmation of many 
that "she will yet pull through." 

Our observation at this point, of the college or 
institute is, that if you coddle it once a year at 
Conference, and make a fuss over it, and grieve 
over its pains, that said college is perfectly willing 
to be overlooked in its misery for another twelve 
months. As cats like their heads to be rubbed, 
and other household pets to be fondled, so the 
Conference college wants to be dandled, rubbed, 
crooned and crowed over. If you do not do it, 
you will hear from it. 

Still another striking likeness about Confer- 
ence colleges is that few men remain as their 
President long. Scarcely ever more than three or 
four years. Each one on his election was felt to 
be and announced as the " coming man," the de- 
liverer of the college from all its debts and troubles, 
and the inaugurator of a new and " unparalleled 
prosperity." 

A few days after his election the Jericho Advo- 
cate came out in a handsome notice as follows: 



THE CONFERENCE COLLEGE. 167 

"The newly elected President of Blank College 
is a man of wide experience and scholarly attain- 
ments, and has already achieved remarkable suc- 
cess as an educator. Previous to his election he 
the head of Froth Seminary, which school 
he built up from almost nothing to three hundred 
pupils. He is an A.M. graduate of the University 
of Hubbies, and is highly commended not only by 
Culty of the institute, but also by a number oi 
prominent teachers, preachers, and patrons of sur- 
rounding 

The newly elected President referred to some 
of the above facts in his maiden presidential 

speech before the Conference, He also felt as- 
sured of "unparalleled prosperity," and begged 
the brethren to " rally" to him and to this " great 
embryo seat of l e arning." 

I great Bhuffling of feet among the 

brethren at the end of the Bpeecfa which was con- 

I by the inexperienced into a Bign oi " ral- 
lying." 

But at t ; ( onference the President wore 

an injure. 1 and I look, and in his second 

1 b he distributed a number of slaps ami raps 

around about, and la-re and there. lb' said that 

rethren had Dot " rallied." 



1 68 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

At the close of the third or fourth year he re- 
quested the Board of Trustees to relieve him of 
the honor and responsibility of the presidency; 
and the " coming man " became the going man. 

After his return to the pastorate he was always 
looked upon by the brethren with a great degree 
of reverence. And it was noted that he was made 
Chairman of the Committee on Memorials, and of 
all special committees that had intrusted to them 
affairs of a delicate, difficult and sorrowful nature. 

Still another similarity to be seen in the Confer- 
ence colleges is that they afford opportunity for 
much "resolving" and great debates. In this 
thing it proves a benediction to some, and a safety 
valve for the windiness and steam that has been 
gathering in the orators of the Conference for the 
past year. 

More and more the Conference is becoming a 
regular business machine. Less and less are the 
opportunities for showing off oratorical gifts. 
If there were no other reason to retain the Confer- 
ence college, this alone should have great weight, 
that the discussion of the institute with its ups and 
downs, its woes and perils, gives opportunity for 
pent-up eloquence to come forth. The word 
"woes" here would perhaps be better spelled 



THE CONFERENCE COLLEGE. 169 

-•whoas" as descriptive of the college career 
and history. But to resume; the college discus- 
sion is now about the only chance left the breth- 
ren for a general rhetorical and oratorical corus- 
cating and skyrocketing. Some might except the 
" Memorial Service," a time when men can make 
any kind of a speech they want and not have the 
fear of being contradicted. But the Conference 
college is far superior as a linguistic arena, and 
as such, with all its feebleness and diseases, is a 
necessity. 

At one of the first Conferences the author at- 
tended, when the report of the Wesley-Coke-As- 
bury-McKendree Collegiate Institute was read, 
and then without a word of debate referred to the 
Board or Committee on Educational Interests, he 
tonished and grieved for Wesley-Coke-As- 
bury-McKeodree Collegiate Institute. He thought 
that its troubles were not regarded, its claims not 
duly considered. How could they sweep all this 
of Information and these wails lor help away 
with a mere motion to refer to a certain com- 
mitt. 

: ly we reasoned as one of the foolish ones. 

The older heads knew better. The case was not 

. but postponed for discussion. Waterloo 



I70 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

was to be fought on Saturday if we adjourned 
Sunday, or on Monday if the appointments were 
read Monday night. 

All the week the platform Titans of the Confer- 
ence gathered their wind and strength for the 
contest that was to try their own mettle, and the 
patience of some of their brethren who wanted no 
debate, but their " appointments " that they might 
go home. 

On the memorable Saturday or Monday, the 
long-expected report of the Committee on Educa- 
tion is brought in. The President or Agent of 
the college has requested the chairman to let him 
know when he would present the report. He has 
done so. The hour has come. The Titans are 
in their places. Electricity is felt to be in the air, 
and a downpour is expected. 

The chairman proceeds slowly, as if weighing 
every word, and with great emphasis through the 
preamble of the report. The brethren bend for- 
ward to hear as though nothing of the kind had 
ever been read to them before. The report is so 
strikingly original that we give a part for its pres- 
ervation in the archives of the Church. 
The Report of Committee. 

"The report of the Wesley-Coke-Asbury-Mc- 



THE CONFERENXE COLLEGE. 17I 

Kendree Collegiate Institute, has been laid before 
this committee. 

11 We murk with profound gratification the in- 
creased matriculation, the improvement of curric- 
ulum, the enlargement of Faculty, and the gen- 
eral toning up of every department of the college. 
v 44 There have been valuable additions to the col- 
lege library and the chemical laboratory. New 
buildings have been erected : extensive repairs 
have been put on other buildings; and the cam- 
pus has been improved and ornamented. 

" The attendance of scholars this year has been 
above that of any previous year: and a still great- 
er number are expected in the following session. 

44 The explanation of this great success is to be 

attributed to the untiring labors of the gifted 

dent and his able Faculty. With such a man 

at the helm as Dr. Wise, we predict lor this col- 

fege in the future a course of unparalleled pros- 

perity." 

After •' : 1 ame the li wh< 
pr.rt, and then th<- " Be it resolveds." 

When the last u Be it resolved" was read, and 
th,. readei ' ■'■• ;l pi" could have been 

beard to fall. It was the lull before the storm. 

Some one moved that the report be adopted, 



172 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

when suddenly a dozen men were on their feet 
with cries of "Mr. President!" "Mr. Chair- 
man! " " Bishop ! " 

The member who said "Bishop,*' was recog- 
nized. He, however, simply said that the Presi- 
dent of the College was on the floor and should 
be heard at this time. The Chair so ruled. 

The President's speech was a portrayal of the 
tremendous difficulties in directing the course of 
such a college as the Wesley-Coke-Asbury-Mc- 
Kendree Collegiate Institute. He spoke of its 
diseases and complaints. Its falling plaster and 
unpainted walls. Its broken fences and unfilled 
library shelves. He next spoke of the heavy debt 
that was now upon the institute. The slim salaries 
on which the President and Faculty were living, 
and the fearful struggle they were making to cause 
the college to hold its own in the face of other 
rival institutions in the land. He said also that 
the brethren had not "rallied" to him, that he 
was bearing the burden alone, college, buildings, 
twenty acres of land and all, and that it was all 
pushing him down into the grave. 

Then the President struck a more hopeful vein 
and said that the possibilities of the college were 
great. That if he could secure the moral and 



THE CONFERENCE COLLEGE. I 73 

financial support of the u brethren" the college 
would at once enter upon a course of "unparal- 
leled prosperity" etc., etc. 

After this the battle proper began which lasted 
three hours in the morning and two in the after- 
noon. Numerous were the speeches for and 
against the report of the college. The Confer 
ence was about equally divided. Horns were 
locked. Achilles dragged Hector around the 
walls of Troy, and then Hector suddenly came to 
life and pulled Achilles around. Oratorical swords 
crossed, flashed and the blood of reputation 
flowed. There were bursts of laughter and ap- 
plause from the looking and listening Conference. 
Tin: fame of speakers was made and lost that day. 
Some dated their promotion to big churches from 
this famous college debate. Some secured elec- 
tion to the General Conference, or elevation to 
Connectional position from that wonderful time. 
Intellects grappled, wit sparkled, arguments cut, 
ridicule burned, eloquence soared, while all the 
time Wesley-Coke-Asbury-Mc Kt-ndree Collegiate 
Institute blazed like an illuminated city in the 
skies. These were the hours that the college rose 
and reigned. This was the time it paid to be 
President, Of <ven the janitor of such an institu- 



174 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

tion that could bring such wondrous scenes into 
an Annual Conference. 

The motion was made to refer the report back 
to the committee. 

Lost. 

A motion was made to adjourn. 

Lost. 

The battle raged on. The time for adjourn- 
ment arriving the motion was made to " extend 
the hour." 

Carried enthusiastically — and the speeches mul- 
tiplied. 

Brother Spry said that the Conference in its 
business over the college reminded him of a hen 
with one chicken. 

Brother Witt said that his mother once owned a 
turkey hen that sat on a small squash by mistake 
for two months trying to hatch it out, and instead 
of hatching the squash, the squash wore the hen 
out. This hen was the Conference trying to bring 
something out of nothing; and we were simply 
wearing ourselves out without hatching anything. 
That to call an ordinary-sized school of a hun- 
dred boys and girls a college, was to him absurd 
in the extreme. That the school was in an out-of- 
the-way place and was a failure financially and 



THE CONFERENCE COLLEGE. I 75 

every other way, that there was no reasonable hope 
of its hen everything seemed against it. 

Brother Hope replied that he knew* a gentleman 
who said he would give titty dollars toward the re- 
lic 1 of the college if one hundred other men 
" could be found " who would do the same. The 
Ollld be found " had a dubious and mel- 
ancholy Bound, and no response was elicited. 

her Brilliant made a brief speech in which 
id " The problem of the college can be easi- 
ly solved, ami the entire burden lifted if the preach- 
ers wiil pledge themselves to send two students 
from each pastoral charge. Two boys from each 
Of the one hundred charges of the Conference will 
give us tWO hundred students, and place Wesley- 
-Asbury-McKendree College side by side 
with Other great institutions." 

This arithmetical argument had great weight for 

a while with the Conference i for all at the moment 

saw that one hundred times two was two hundred; 
guratively they could see the college 
swarming with new students. 

!<>v. Mr. Pro said in his speech that 

•• While tin: College is in an out-of-the-way 

i has been insinuated; yel this can be said 
tnd good things as well and as an 



176 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

argument proves too much and so proves nothing. 
But I am glad to inform the Conference that the 
new "North Star and Southern Cross Railroad" 
now being projected is to pass directly through 
the town thereby increasing the value of our Col- 
lege property and adding to the facility of reach- 
ing the seat of learning." 

This speech decidedly impressed the Confer- 
ence, and the members looked at each other and 
nodded their heads approvingly, and the stock 
of Wesley-Coke-Asbury-McKendree College went 
up with a rush. 

The Rev. Mr. Con followed Mr. Pro, and with 
a sarcastic smile proceeded to puncture this his 
railroad balloon or boom with these words 

"I have recently interviewed Col. Crosstie the 
General Manager of the railroad that Brother Pro 
refers to, and he tells me that inasmuch as the 
town of Buncombe, at which our college is lo- 
cated, refused to contribute to the stock, that the 
surveyors have been called in, the route has been 
changed and will now pass east of Buncombe not 
less than ten miles." 

At this speech the Conference looked dejected 
and the college stock went down with a great 
flop, and some members called out " Question! " 



THE CONFERENCE COLLEGE. I 77 

At this juncture Rev. Mr. Oily in a smooth and 
smiling speech changed the entire situation: 

" For my part" he said with great emphasis and 
a soothing wave of the hand " let the colleges of 
other denominations have all the railroads they de- 
sire; I for one am opposed to there being a single 
one in the neighborhood of our seats of learning. 
The depots become lounging places for the stu- 
. and the trains are disseminators of vice. 
Our boys will study best in remote towns like Bun- 
combe where nothing but the tinkle of cow bells 
and the note of the whip-poor-will can be heard. 
Here amid the quiet of country lanes and the still- 
ness of village life, let them labor with their text- 
books and prepare for the great duties and vic- 
tories of li: r my part I am delighted that 
ilroad i- to miss Buncombe ten miles. This 
verv miM "t tin- railroad is a hit for the college, 
and will be the making of the boys. In my 
opinion this ten-mile divergence adds to the al- 
ilue of our college one hun- 

The I Q< e approved and began to look 

fill again. 
Time would tail to tell all that was said on both 
I . bad anil indit'lerent . There 



I78 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

was the joking speech, the anecdotic speech, and 
the speech in which the speaker lost his temper, 
and then his argument. 

Meanwhile the bishop looked and listened, and 
picked out future presiding elders. 

From the wealth of oratory that was lavished 
that day we confess in our selection from the 
speeches to that confusion which is called the em- 
barrassment of riches. 

The debate finally narrowed down to the two 
Boanerges of the Conference, Dr. Coole and 
Dr. Blowhard. Brother Pro after repeating him- 
self three times fell off. Brother Con got mad 
and sulked under a ruling of the Chair. Brother 
Oily ran out of oil. The arena was filled with the 
wounded and slain, and only the two gladiators 
mentioned above were left to finish the gory con- 
test. 

Dr. Coole in his last speech said 

"Mr. President, let us look away from these 
rosy colorings that our brethren have with such 
a large brush and liberal hand laid upon the fu- 
ture of our Conference institute. 

The college is in an inaccessible spot, and out 
of the world. It was born sick and has never 
seen a well day since its birth. The location is 



THE CONFERENCE COLL I'/O, 

evidently unhealthy. It has been nothing but a 
burden on our hands for twenty-five years. Our 
preachers have been taxed for its support until 
re sick and tired of it, and all that we get in 
return are groans and lamentations at the end of 
the year, and fresh appeals for more help. 

It calls itself a college and has not the attend- 
ance of some village or country schoolhouse. "Why 
should a Conference be taxed to support just one 
field BChool in a corner of cur territory: Win- 
not 1 1 for every other school? " 

•• Here is the report," continued Dr. Coole who 
from this moment became Dr. I lot. •• Here it is," 
peated loudly, holding it in one hand and 
striking it with his right forefinger. 

"Listen to these expressions, 'Gratifying in- 

• of attendance and larger matrieulation this 
year than anv previous year.' What is this in- 
ttendance sir, and enlarged matricula- 
tion? I find in looking in the catalogues of the 
past, that four ' they had [OX, three vears 

rince 99, last year 100, and 
at is the gratifying increase 

anything known in previous yean?" 
•■ I' i well-known fad sir. that fully eighty 

ipilfl are boya and girla in the town of 



ISO PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Buncombe. Then ten of the remaining twenty-two 
are free pupils, and less than ten are students from 
any distance, and yet here is the college so-called 
that we are expected to support. 

" I note the expression ' valuable additions to the 
college library and chemical laboratory.' These 
valuable additions Mr. Chairman are the antiquated 
library of one of our deceased preachers and a 
forty-gallon can of muriatic acid. 

" I read lower down here on the report, of im- 
provements about the campus and additional build- 
ings going up. I was particular to inquire about 
all these, and the only buildings that I can hear 
about are a small stable and a hen house built for 
one of the professors. As for the camfus improve- 
ment it seems to consist in a new gate on the town 
side, a wagon load of gravel piled into a sink hole 
in the road, and some Jimson weeds cut out of 
the fence corner. 

" I mark the words ' extensive repairs.' I grant 
that the repairs are needed; the buildings shake 
at every wind as if they had the palsy, and the 
walls inside show great sheets of plastering gone 
and broad splotches of discoloration, that give the 
appearance of leprosy. It surely needs repairs. 
But where are those repairs? I could not find 



THE CONFBRBNC I COLL l8l 

them unless it be some new shingles on the main 
building, that in their contrast to the old mossy 
boards around them makes one think that the roof 
had the smallpox. 

" I mean sir no reflection upon the President 
of the college Dr. Wise and his able Faculty. 
They arc not to blame for these things. The 
trouble is we have located our college where it 
cannot flourish, and we arc putting good men 
there to suffer and die, and to be the victims of 
our denominational pride and Conference folly. 
The work they are doing can be done by the 
laity, by any of the excellent instructors we have 
in the land. We Deed these preachers in the 
pastorate, or at the head of institutions that will 
pe for their talents. 

••I . that this Conference take steps 

lor the .sale of this college, and thai we .settle upon 
an institution of learning that in buildings, fix- 

. appliances and .situation may deserve the 
ollege and command the respect oi the 

whole land." 

The appl m <• that followed this speech would 
been louder and longer, but it was observed 
that the bishop looked grave. 

Dr. Blowhard arose for the Issl speech. 



l82 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

" Bishop, I confess to being amazed at the in- 
flammatory and ill-considered utterances of Dr. 
Coole. More than that he has said things that were 
positively harsh and unkind, and reflected upon 
the wisdom and judgment of the Conference." 

When Dr. Blowhard said this, quite a number of 
members began to put on an injured look that be- 
longs to people whose wisdom and judgment have 
been reflected on. Dr. Blowhard seeing the good 
effect produced by this remark went on, 

"This college, bishop, is no mushroom affair. 
It is the product of the intelligence, liberality, sac- 
rifice, toil and suffering of this body of men." 

Again the Conference assumed the proper look 
under this praise, and tried to appear humble in 
spite of being so intelligent, liberal and sacrificing; 
while the President of the college who was listen- 
ing intently gave a great groan when Dr. Blowhard 
used the word " suffering." 

Dr. Blowhard continued 

11 Dr. Coole in his speech says that the town of 
Buncombe is in an out-of-the-way place for a col- 
lege. For that matter sir, the north pole is in an 
out-of-the-way place ; but what would we do with- 
out the north pole ! He says that our college was 
born sick and has never been well a single day. 






THE CONFERENCE COLLEGE. 183 

that to be an argument against Wesley- 
Coke - Asbury- McKendree Collegiate Institute ? 
Then do .ve strike blows at Bishop Simpson, Pay- 
son, and even Timothy himself, who was far from 
well according to the letters of St. Paul. It is a 
well-known fact that Payson was a frail, delicate 
man. and yet he was a great power. Some of the 
Strongest men that I have ever known were once 
Very feeble in health and had numerous diseases, 
but arc now robust ami useful members of society. 
Our college has had sore trials and troubles, but 
I believe she 'will yet pull through.'" 

Some applau 

Dr. O >le has been pleased to ridicule the able 
report of the President Dr. Wise. Is it not enough 
for Dr. Coole that a committee of his brethren sat 
in deliberation upon all the papers bearing upon 

the institute, and passed favorably upon them! 

brethren no judgment? Were they not 

illy selected from the Conference body be- 

. character and experience? 

the committee I protesl against the re- 

n upon our labors. While Dr. Coole was 

attending nigh' • the church and enjoy- 

ing himseli tiling sir, yes toiling over 

■ 



184 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

"As to the reflection upon the number of stu- 
dents, and the idea of calling an Institution a col- 
lege which only had a few scholars in attendance, 
I would say sir that just seventy men made up the 
Sanhedrin, and twelve constituted the Apostolic 
College. There is nothing in numbers. Besides 
do we not all know that a college is as much a 
benefit to a hundred people as it is to five hun- 
dred. Does the fact of three or four hundred 
additional students make the college course and 
training what it is, or is the benefit in the curricu- 
lum and tutorship? What sir if most of the stu- 
dents come from Buncombe? Do not the Bun- 
combe boys and girls need a college? Are they 
not to be considered because they are from Bun- 
combe? 

" Bishop, I have one more word to say by way 
of argument for the continuance of the college. 
Does the Conference know that the Baptists have 
just purchased twenty-five acres of land, and have 
already broken ground in Buncombe for the erec- 
tion of just such an institute as ours. Are we 
going to allow this aggressive denomination to 
rob us of our influence, take our glory from us, 
and sweep us from the field? Is it the policy of 
the Methodist Church to retire? Can this Con- 



THE CONIERENcE COLLEGE. 185 

ferencc afford to sacrifice the labors and influence 
01 a quarter of a century, and let the Baptists 
reap where we have sown, and gather into their 
folds the results of our long and arduous labors? 
I for one say let us stand up for our own, let us not 
'-.e the field that Providence has plainly given 
1 above all let us preserve the fruits of our 

own previous industry." 

These last remarks were felt to be clinchers. 

While at the words " the Baptists " every eye was 

on Dr. Blowhard, and it was plain that the battle 

was WOO, the report would be adopted, and Wes- 

■ •ke-Asbur; -McKnulree College continued 

on the list of American colleges for another year. 

n this time Dr. Blowhard arose in eloquence 

with each .succeeding sentence. The Conference 

omplimented, but on what it would be hard 

The President and Faculty were lauded, 

and the college magnified. Prom the reverbera- 

eroration we are only able to gather some 

fugitive sentences that fell thick and fast upon 
ra<. h other bringing out rounds of applause from 
.1 as can be recalled they 
•■ This nineteenth century " — u The eyes of 
irld are upon us in this matter" — "Wes- 
ley - Coke-Asbury - McKendree Collegiate Insti- 



1 86 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

tute"— "Rally"— "Upward"- "Zenith," and 
" Unparalleled prosperity." 

Dr. Blowhard sat down on uttering this last 
sentence wiping his face, and in the midst of 
thundering applause. A number of the brethren 
shook hands with him and congratulated him. 

The bishop added a few words saying that " It 
is well for us who are Methodists to remember 
that Methodism was born in a college." Where- 
upon the Conference assumed a dignified look, 
and several of the preachers could have been 
taken for professors of Sanskrit, not to mention 
languages of only one or two thousand years of age. 

The bishop also said " that the twenty acres 
deeded to us is a gift of trust, and we cannot afford 
to ignore the character of the conveyance. It has 
been given us for a certain purpose, and we must 
not be recreant to the trust." 

This brief speech with other similar remarks 
from the bishop bradded the nail so to speak, that 
had been driven by Dr. Blowhard: and so with 
cries of "Question!" "Question!" the vote 
was taken, the report adopted by an overwhelm- 
ing majority, and men drew their breath as peo- 
ple do when a great danger has been averted. 

That day the events and occurrences of the col- 



THE CONFERENCE COLLEGE. 187 

lege debate were the theme of conversation in a 
hundred different homes. And citizens of the 
town still talk about the great speeches of that 
wonderful da v. And preachers who mingled in 
the verbal contest still regret to this hour that 
they did not Bay things that occurred to them after 
they got home. 

The following year Dr. Wise resigned the pres- 
idency and returned to the pastorate, saying that 
the air of Buncombe did not agree with him, and 
that the water of Buncombe did not agree with 
his wile 

Dr. Son was then elected by the board of col- 
tnigteea to take his place. At the next Con- 
ference he made his maiden presidential speech, 
in which he was heard with great emphasis to say 
that "the Conference must rally to the Wesley- 
v -Aflbnry-McKendree Collegiate Institute" 

and concluded with the words "unparalleled pros- 
perity." 

At the close "i his speech there was a great 

shuffling of feet among the brethren, which was 

gn of the rallying of 

tin- Confereni e to th 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A MARTYR. 

§HE was a lovely girl of eighteen. Her hair a 
rich dark brown was coiled in a Grecian knot 
at the back of a finely shaped head. Her eyes 
dark in the day became perfectly black at night 
through a remarkable expansion of the pupil. Her 
figure was perfect. And when she first appeared 

in Y many said that no fairer girl had ever 

been there before. 

It was a wonder to many that turning away from 
other and more eligible suitors, she gave her hand 
and heart to a Southern youth of twenty-one, who 
like many others had been left without a penny 
through the instrumentality of the war. 

After a few years of wedded life the young hus- 
band was converted to God, and soon after en- 
tered the ministry. The hardships that followed 
could not well be mentioned here. But the young 
wife gladly entered upon the difficult field with her 
husband, and endured privations and toil such as 
she had never known before. 

She had the most unbounded hope and faith in 

(188) 



A MARTYR. 1 89 

the future of the young husband: and there was 
not a murmur that ever fell from her lips during 
the years of severe trial in which he was struggling 
upward to public recognition. Her deft and taste- 
ful fingers made the humble-looking home like a 
bower with trained vines at the door and window, 
domestic ornaments inside, cushioned barrel chairs, 
swinging flower pots, and wooden shelves trans- 
formed into things of beauty by scalloped tissue 
paper. The wheel of her sewing machine llew 
with a dizzy rapidity, as the beautiful form bent 
over the loved task that was to supplement the 
meager larder and purchase theological books for 
her husband. 

Promotion came gradually but steadily with him, 
but he marked with pain that the toil of these 
years was manifestly telling upon her. The figure 
perfect, the complexion as white ami pink- 
like, the profile as striking, the smile as captivating 
er. But there were days when she seemed 
to go down with attacks that seemed to puzzle the 
physicians of the small town where they lived. 
She would emerge from her bedroom alter a lew 
. saying that she was all right again, but it 
ible that these attacks came oftener and 
I longer. The step by and by began to lose 



I9O PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

its spring, the form some of its roundness, and one 
day in speaking to a lady friend in the parlor the 
young wife burst into tears and said she could not 
bring herself to tell her husband of the almost un- 
bearable pain she was enduring. 

On a certain year the young preacher was swept 
upward to the first appointment in his Conference. 
The wife was more gratified than he. She could 
not conceal it. And when he met her eyes he saw 
the proud fond loving look that seemed to say 

" I knew it would be so." 

They had barely entered upon their new charge 
when the last of those strange attacks came ; and 
one night after midnight hearing her moan, the 
husband turned to look upon her and to his con- 
sternation found her unconscious. Physicians 
were hastily summoned, and with grave faces they 
labored with her. In the afternoon of the next 
day they called the husband into the parlor and 
one of them broke the tidings to the husband that 
"there was no hope:" that the gentle sufferer 
would never be roused again. 

With a cry that went to every heart the unfor- 
tunate man threw up his hands and fell upon the 
floor. 

Hours afterwards it was pathetic to see him bend- 



A MARTYR. 191 

ing over the unconscious form and calling in vain 
upon her who before this had always responded 
with brightest of smiles to his lightest utterance. 

he took, her limp hand in his own, he remem- 
bered how those fingers had done a thousand beau- 
tiful things for him, ami how her feet had taken 
many a step for his comfort, lie recalled the first 
al met him at the door, upon the day of 
their marriage. 1 [e had returned from some busi- 
ness errand in the town and was thus greeted as 
he laid his hand on the door knob. How beauti- 
ful .she looked that day in her soft lawn dress with 
a dainty bow of ribbon in her hair. From that 
time she always opened the front door of their 
home to him whether he came by day or night, or 
early or late. I low bright she had made that 
and how he wished now he had told her 
oftener how completely she had filled his life. 
Though' busy as he knelt by her side 

the unconscious face. He remembered 

the hours in which he was buried in his books and 

studied whi ntly near, needle in hand 

ling little garments ;md darning little socks 
th.it i. lie in the basket by her side. 

\\ ith dead authors. 
Dei- with her of the living needle. 



I92 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

One scene kept coming up. The year before 
on a certain work he had trudged a great deal on 
foot through streets of town and country lanes look- 
ing up cold and strayed-away parishioners. One 
evening about the hour of sunset he was passing 
the parsonage, and glancing in saw her in a rock- 
ing-chair on the verandah with that same busy 
needle. He stopped near his gate and unobserved 
himself watched her. The handsome head with 
the Grecian knot was bent over the sewing. There 
was an atmosphere of loneliness about her that 
was indescribably pathetic. The man's heart felt 
a sudden pang, and he said to himself 

" Here I am visiting every man's wife except 
my own. I am acting as if every woman needed 
spiritual sympathy and help but my own wife." 

A mist dashed into his eye as he spoke aloud to 
her from the gate, 

" Would you like for me to come in and sit with 
you V * ' 

She quickly looked up from sewing with a bright 
happy smile and said, 

"O I would be so glad.*" 

He came in and sat down near her, but he could 
not see clearly for some time, and his voice had a 
huskiness in it that did not at once clear away. 



A MARTYR. 1 93 

It all came back to him now, and he called her 
name at the bedside as one speaks who is uttering 
a last farewell. But the words of endearment 
DOt heard. She never answered him again. 
But in the moment of death, as the last breath 
fluttered on the lips, a sudden gleam came upon 
her face, and a smile so perfectly heavenly, and 
that remained even alter death in such a marked 
■ee, that it impressed every observer. 
The city papers the next morning deplored the 
untimely end of the young wife and mother who 
wa> lying still and white in the parlor. "Her sun 
had gone down at noon," they quoted. Thev also 
explained t<> the public the cause of her death, giv- 
ing it some high-sounding name as unusual as it 
was mystifying. The young husband knew bet- 
II- remembered the living wheel of the sew- 
ing machine, the meager and unnourishing fare 
,irs of their table while he preached the gos- 

pel and struggled upward. II<- remembered how 

ilor had gradually left her cheek, the buoy- 
ancy bad : . and strength hail at 
He knew with a bitter feeling in 
his heart that the technical term given by the phv- 

sici.m ami reported by the papers aa the cause of 

ily death, needed a commentary <>r glo 

i;; 



194 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

that he could furnish; and that the real explana- 
tion was a life of hardship to which she had been 
unaccustomed, and the lack of food that makes 
blood and restores wasted tissue. So, as he read 
the words, he drew a pen over them and wrote 

"She died a martyr." 

The young wife and mother was buried in the 
morning. The funeral scene at the grave was 
peculiarly pathetic from the silence. The voice of 
the officiating minister was heard breaking the 
stillness with the words 

" The earth and the sea shall give up their dead, 
and the bodies of those who sleep in him shall be 
changed and made like unto his own glorious 
body." 

Then came the fall of the first clods, and the 
husband sitting in a carriage hidden from view, 
crouched down in a corner feeling that a pall of 
darkness had settled on everything. 

A great bunch of white roses was laid on the 
grave just over the heart of the young woman who 
lay as white and beautiful as the flowers six feet 
beneath them under the sod. The last glance 
thrown back by the bereaved man showed the 
lonely grave on the hillside, the flowers lying on 
the fresh-made ridge and a group of cedar trees 



A MARTYR. 1 95 

standing by like an emerald frame for the peace- 
ful picture. 

Is there anything sadder on earth than the re- 
turn from the cemetery to a home whose light and 
sunshine lias been buried. The effort of kindly 
hands to make the return less dreary bv changing 
the furniture, having firea blazing on the hearth 
and lights twinkling in the different rooms, and 
then meeting you kindly at the door, is sweet to 
the heart and appreciated. Hut all fail to keep 
back the lonely feeling, the desolation that sweeps 
over the spot, and the inward or outward burst of 
grief as one enters the door of the desolate home. 
She who had never failed to open the door for 
years, with warm loving smile and greeting was 
not there. 

The bereaved man with stilled choking feeling 
went out oi the h0U8e and Bat on the back Steps 
and looked at the empty back yard who.se empti- 
ness and .silence actually smote the heart. I lis 
whinnied plaintively from the stable lot, and 
I like going out and putting his face on the 
neiA 1 thftll animal and crying out with a 

Cry. R£8tle88 he changed his seat, and 

walked about as one missing something. 

That night was auakelul one to the lonely man. 



I96 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

He had his four children placed to sleep side by 
side in one large bed, and lay on the edge watch- 
ing their slightest movement and saying often with 
a groan, 

" God have mercy on my motherless children." 

How quietly and happily they slept, all ignorant 
of the fearful loss that had come upon them. The 
father looked at the cheeks flushed with health, 
marked the gentle breathing, the dimpled hand 
resting upon the coverlet or snugged up to the 
cheek, and the awful sense of their loss and his 
own would roll afresh upon him and he would 
moan out in the night. 

As he walked the next morning into the dining 
room to breakfast, the little ones were there be- 
fore him two on each side, but at the head of the 
table where she used to sit was an empty chair. 

Hastily bidding the servant watch over them and 
attend to their wants, the man with an awful op- 
pression on heart and lungs, and all but gasping 
left the house and staggered out on the street. 
Homes bright, cheery, with sunshine on gallery 
and yard were on each side of him. His own 
seemed to have an Egyptian blackness resting 
upon it. O for a lonely place in the forest where 
he could fling himself down and cry out until the 



A MARTYR. 1 97 

agony that like leaden bands was pressing about 
his heart would snap and give way. O for sym- 
pathy, for a kindly voice, a loving face. 

He almost ran along the street: his lace was 
white and eves hollow from mental suffering and 
loss of sleep. Every one who passed him, know- 
ing his bereavement heaved a sigh at the man's 
. but being tied up by social customs did not 
speak. 

Hardly knowing why he did so. the sorrowing 
man ascended a long flight of steps that led from 
the pavement t<> the upper verandah of a beautiful 
home owned by one of the members of his con- 
■:on. lie had hardly realized that he had 
rung the bell when it was noiselessly opened by a 
I him through the hall into the din- 
ing room. A cheery lire crackled on the hearth 
and the table W I nth-man and his 

the Only OCCUpanta Of the room, were about 
sitting down to the morning meal, when the ghast- 

ed preach< onounced ami walked in. 

The lady moved swiftly to meet him with the tears 

falling upon her cheeks. The preacher looked at 

moment with that drawn look of pain in his 

•.ml said, 
i* ( ) — my home is desolate I I am 



I90 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

a broken-hearted man I I don't know where to go ! 
I have come to you." 

And the blessed woman of God, old enough to 
be his mother, without a moment's pause, and 
with the tears fairly streaming from her eyes 
kissed him as if he had been her own son, and as 
she put his head upon her shoulder said — 

" I will be a mother to you." 

How he wept upon that faithful shoulder; how 
the flood gates were literally torn open and the bur- 
dened, tortured heart found temporary relief in 
scalding tears and sobs that shook the man's 
whole body. 

What a breakfast it was, or more truly, was not. 
Eating was not thought of, and the Saviour came 
down and girded himself and ministered unto them. 
The lady herself had lost precious members of her 
household, and could feel for her pastor. He 
spoke of heaven and the resurrection. His tone 
was softened and gentle, but the influence was one 
of flame. The skies opened over the breakfast 
table and the head of the household a man of busi- 
ness and of the world, swallowed with difficulty 
the few morsels he ate, while his tears fell into the 
cup over which he bent to hide his emotion. 

It was a week before the bereaved man could 



A MARTYR. 1 99 

summon up strength to visit the cemetery. One aft- 
ernoon he drove out with the four little ones to the 
young mother's grave. The cemetery lay beyond 
the city a mile on a beautiful slope in a broad val- 
ley whose sides were made of two parallel hills 
that were long, green, and lofty. Far away at 
one end of the valley could be caught a glimpse 
of the distant town and the broad and yellow Mis- 
sissippi: and at the other end, still more distant, 
. perspective of blue sky and white clouds 
closing up the valley in that direction as with a 
heavenly gate. A brook with an occasional wil- 
low on its bank, and Bpanned by two bridges, 
murmured along its way down the vale to the 
liver. The golden sunshine seemed to sleep 
upon the grave-dotted slope covered with its mo- 
hite pillars and whispering cedars and 
It was a " Sleepy Hollow *' indeed. 
The grave that they called " Mamma's grave" 
in an upper remote comer of the cemetery, 

at the foot of a cedar-crowned I 'lull and com- 
manding a wide ' of the beautiful valley. 
round the man flung himself, near 

. while the Children With grave eyes and 

silent lip- grouped themselves near. But after a 

little the children' i sorrow was over, and the two 



PASTORAL SKETCHES. 



youngest, aged two and four began playing quiet- 
ly about their mother's grave. As the father 
watched them and listened to their innocent prat- 
tle, and thought of the faithful heart six feet be- 
low them in the dark and cold, who could not see 
or know that they were all there thinking of and 
loving her; another storm of sorrow swept over 
him, and he buried his face in his hands that the 
children might not see his grief. 

How every moment of that afternoon is remem- 
bered. The eye took in the quiet sleeping place 
of the dead below them, and followed the broad 
sweep of the valley disappearing in the distance. 
The soft coo of a dove came floating from a dis- 
tant tree, while farther away still was wafted to 
them through the still afternoon the voice of some 
one driving cattle in the field. Later he heard 
the far-away whistle of a steamboat on the river. 
How faint it was, and plaintive. It seemed to 
sorrow with him. O if he could take passage on 
it, and sail away from the heartache and loneli- 
ness. O if he could go to the end of the valley 
where the white clouds were piled up against the 
horizon, and turn one of them as on a hinge and 
raise up the curtain of blue and get away from a 
world that seemed now so utterly empty and lonelv. 



A MARTYR. 20 1 

How wondrous is it that the absence of one 
person can bring such a solitary and desertlike 
feeling and appearance to the whole world ! 

Late in the afternoon they had to say farewell 
to the sacred and precious spot. It was hard to 
her all alone out there in the night, She 
who had made home so bright and beautiful, to 
be left in the dark under the stars, and King 
among Btrangers. The thought of the winds 
sighing about her, the autumn leaves falling, and 
the snow drifting upon her resting place, brought 
a great pang to the heart. 

With a tearful ami tender look, he turned away 
from the lonely grave. The sunlight had left the 
valley and was now far up the lofty slopes and 
near the summit. The shadows were filling the 
Valley and creeping up the hillsides as if after the 
sunlight. A little later came out a sunset blush at 

valley toward the town, tip- even- 
ing star gleamed white like an angel's hand over 
them, ami listening to the ehureh b<-lls chiming 
softly in tin- di y drove silently back to 

Orld — back to the city of the troubled living, 

the peaceful dead. 

ince that afternoon. 
Tin- promotion of tin- preacher went on stead- 



202 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

ily, and his busy life has been thrown in the 
midst of the large cities of the land. But 
from their noisy streets his mind recalls the past, 
and his heart travels back again to the lonely 
grave on the hillside. He sees the sunlit valley 
with the gleaming river and distant spires at one 
end, and the white clouds and blue sky at the 
other. Engirdled with cedar trees he sees the 
lonely grave, with a small cluster of white and 
pink shells, and a rosebush at the foot shaking 
out fragrance and blossoms upon the gentle 
mound, and there comes a great longing to lie 
down by her side and be at rest. 

A marble slab now shines at the head of the 
grave. With the erection of the tablet came the 
question what shall be inscribed upon it. 

Truth wanted to write 

" Here lies a martyr," and that would have 
been true indeed. 

Love said put the sentence, 

" The wife of my youth is here, and in her 
grave the sun of my life has set." 

Sorrow asked for the inscription 

" My heart is buried here." 

Faith urged that the single line be carved, 

"We shall meet again." 



A MARTYR. 203 

But Justice at last prevailed and taking up the 

mallet and chisel went to work and cut into the 

slab a verse taken from the Word of God, which 

seemed to have been written foi just such as the 

ced sleeper — 

■•Well done; good and faithful Bervant — enter 
tnou into the joy of thy Loid. ' 



CHAPTER XIV. 



fHE handsome young- wife with a telltale blush 
whispered something to her husband at ten 
o'clock one night. He was engaged in his " Study" 
when her hand was laid lightly upon his shoulder. 
Arousing himself from his book reveries, he felt 
the gentle .ouch and caught the whispered words 
as in a dream. 

In a few minutes more he was speeding through 
the darkness for physician and nurse. As he re- 
membered the troubled look and whisper of his 
wife while he hastened on block after block 
through the silent streets, the recollection would 
spur him afresh and he would change the fast walk 
to a run. 

An hour afterwards the physician, nurse and hus- 
band were in the sick room looking solicitously 
upon the young wife, whose fine head with heavy 
knot of dark-brown hair lay propped up on the 
snow-white pillow. 

In another hour a fifth life was added to the 
!204) 



GUY. 205 

group, and the father, physician and nurse hung 
over the beautiful child with interest and tc nder- 
ness. The little fellow enveloped in the s )ftest 
and whitest of goods was then laid for a moment 
by the side of the young mother. The flushed 
face had become white as marble, and the long 
eye.ashes drooped wearily upon the cheek. The 
nurse said, 

"Look and see what a fine boy you have;" 
and the handsome head was turned, the dark eyes 
full of a warm love light fell upon the babe at her 
side, and with a fleeting tender smile the mother 
said, M God bless my precious child.*' 

And BO this was the way that Guy came into the 
world. 

m the beginning every one loved him. There 
lOmething about him even in babyhood that 
chew people strangely to him, and that peculiar 
influence waa realized all through his short lite. 

He had " old ways." and above all loving ways 
that made him many friends in his earliest child- 
hood. These old and loving ways never left him. 
He had ai a rule a serious lace, that was tempered 
frith such that one loved to look upon 

him. And there was in his brown-gray eyes such 
a look ol innocence, frankness and confidence in 



206 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

every one that the heart was speedily drawn out 
and knit to him. 

Far back in his first years we recall him in the 
arms of his nurse prepared for an evening walk. 
The little Scotch plaid dress, and cap with feather, 
the long brown curls falling on his shoulders, and 
the big innocent eyes taking us all in, and the rosy 
mouth put up for a good-bye kiss, is a mental pic- 
ture that time has not been able to destroy. 

Later on in a Southern city the curls were taken 
off, and he was promoted to boy's apparel. But 
the gentle loving spirit never changed, and he 
went on making friends. He soon struck up ac- 
quaintance with the policeman, milkman, ice- 
man, and many other characters who belong to a 
city. It was remarkable how all took to him and 
listened to his prattle, as mounted on the seat of 
car or wagon, or perched on fence or tarrying on 
the pavement he both asked and answered ques- 
tions. 

A number of his cute sayings are still remem- 
bered and repeated in the family- We mention 
one. 

His mother one day forbade him to dig what he 
called a "well" in the yard. He discontinued at 
once, but after an hour put in a plea that he might 



GUY. jo; 

be allowed to do so. It was refused. Later on 
he asked again, when his mother said 
•• If you ask me again I will punish you." 
About an hour afterwards Guy appeared close 
bv the side of his mother playing very plaintively 
on his harmonica. After a few melancholy strains 
ipped and said 
•• Mamma, do you hear what the harp says?" 
•• No Guy, I do not. What does it say'.' " 
"Well it say 8, please let little Guy dig that well 
in the back yard." 

mother bowed her head over her sewing to 
al the smile that would come up over the 
adroit way of making an instrument do what Ins 
tongue dare not and so while risking one more 
effort lor the coveted pleasure, he could not be 
in strict justice punished for disobedience, inas- 
much as it was the harmonica and not himself that 

•.he third plea. 

Alter thia he used the harmonica extensively to 

get hi granted. 

Gu\ ' four yean oi age when his young 

mother died. That death has already been de- 
scribed in the preceding chapter. When the lu- 
neral . and twilight settled upon the city, 

the father took the little fellOW in his arms and 



208 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

walked up and down in the starlight before his 
desolate home. The innocent prattle of the child 
about his mother brought a strange measure of re- 
lief. While the child talked he kept glancing up 
at the stars, and finally said, 

" Papa I can see God's eyes and mamma's eyes 
looking down at us." 

From this time there seemed to be a growing 
spirituality in the boy, and his remarks became 
older as we say, and his heart was full of kind- 
ness to all. 

The family moved to New Orleans, but Guy 
soon had a large circle of acquaintances, admirers 
and friends, who took the deepest interest in him, 
and recall to this day some of his sayings. In the 
large kindergarten school where he attended, prin- 
cipal, teachers and scholars all alike felt and yield- 
ed to the characteristic beauty of the child. 

At home if any one gave up in a childish differ- 
ence or dispute, it was always Guy. It finally be- 
came an expected thing on his part. It had been 
taught him as a lesson to be " a little Christian 
and give up to your sister." One day as he ob- 
served how his sister took advantage of this spirit 
in him, he said to her very firmly 

" Now suppose you be a little Christian some." 



GUT. -209 

One Sunday afternoon we missed him for fully 
an hour. Just back of the house was a large un- 
built grass-covered square, on which the young 
men gathered on the Sabbath and desecrated the 
day with games of baseball. Their loud cries 
and shouts could be plainly heard the day we 
speak of, and we began to fear the influence of it 
all upon the children, when Guy came walking in. 

•• Well Guv," we said, " where have you been 
so Ion _ 

Looking steadily at us he said 

" I have been sitting for an hour on the fence 
enjoying the evening breeze." There was a pause 
of a couple of moments and his tender conscience 
made him add, " and looking at the boys play 
ball." 

Another pause. 

"And thinking all the time how wicked it was ! " 

] [e wai ■•• •:■;• fond of being read to by his father 
at night, and would with drooping lashes sit up 
late waiting for his return that he might have the 
coveted chapter. One of his favorite volumes was 
"Scottish Chiefs," and his heart became fre- 
quently full, and his eyes overflowed as we pro- 
ed in the melancholy career of Sir William 

Wall 
M 



2IO PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

In illustration of his tender heart, we recall that 
one afternoon he was quite late in returning from 
school. This was so unusual with him that con- 
siderable uneasiness was felt by the family as first 
one hour and then another rolled by and no little 
boy with school satchel appeared. Finally the 
gate clicked, and Guy flushed excited and with 
big tears in his eyes and many more in his voice, 
narrated quite brokenly the history of the after- 
noon, which was strangely corroborated months 
after Guy's death, and just as he gave it. 

He said "A poor old blind man met me on the 
street and said that he did not know how to get 
home. He told me that he lived away across the 
city near the river, and asked me would I lead 
him home. I told him yes, to take my hand and 
lean on me. And O he leaned so hard! and he 
lived so far from here ! But I took him home and 
I had such trouble in finding my way back," 
and two great tears rolled down the face of the 
child, and the voice unsteady all along broke down 
and could carry the narrative no farther. 

Months after this as we said, the blind man of 
that afternoon episode met a member of the fam- 
ily and told him that sometimes he became con- 
fused in his mind when on the street, and on a cer- 



tain afternoon a little boy at his request had led 
him miles across the city to his home, or rather 
hovel. How the blind man felt when told that the 
little boy who helped him home that day was now 
dead, the writer does not know; he only knows 
that the father's heart melted, and a certain scrip- 
ture took upon itself a new and tender meaning 
from that hour, u He being dead yet speaketh." 

Guv loved to be with his lather: and while the 
pen of the preacher flew at his desk, for hours the 
child would be silently employed near his side, or 
near his feet on the floor. 

One evening a few weeks prior to the fearful 
death of the boy, the preacher was writing in his 
study, until the shadows of the sunset hour began 
to till the room. Guv had stolen noiselessly out. 
The father thought he heard his voice in the 

church: and BO going in softly at the door he saw 
the little fellow sitting in the front pew near the 
pulpit, with a hymn book in his hand singing. 

The church was filled with shadows, but the boy 
d to have no fear or uneasiness. He was in 
hi " Father's hou <•." Hewac singing his favorite 
I Hymns," called " Hiding in Thee." 

[• <emed so Strange and weird to see a boy of 
eight years thus employed: and using such words 



212 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

O safe to the Rock that is higher than I, 
My soul in its sorrows and conflicts would fly! 
So sinful 60 weary, thine, thine would I be 
Thou blest Rock of Ages, I'm hiding in Thee. 

Other lads of his age were even then romping 
and shouting in the street, while he sang alone in 
the dark church 

Thou blest Rock of Ages 
I'm hiding in Thee. 

It was the swan's death song with him. 

The father stood some moments watching the 
little figure in the shadows and listening to the 
plaintive song, and then crept noiselessly away. 
But to this day there is no hymn that so moves him 
as the one sung by the lonely child in the shadowy 
church. To this day the song brings back the 
child, and the child the song. 

Hiding in Thee 
Hiding in Thee 
Thou blest Rock of Ages 
I'm hiding in Thee. 

One day Guy met with a slight accident to his 
foot. Nothing was thought of it. But in the 
damp climate of the Gulf Coast it is a perilous 
thing to receive a wound or cut on hand or foot, 
and not pay special attention to it. 

A few nights afterward the little fellow walked 



GUY. 2 1^ 

with such difficulty from the prayer meeting, that 
his father took him in his arms and carried him 
home. The next day he complained that he could 
not eat; and an older member of the family came 
to the father with a pallid face and said 

M I am afraid that Guy has lockjaw ! 

The father in another minute was making a 
second long run in behalf of the child: one at his 
birth, the other in connection with his death. 
There was no time to wait for cars or anything 
else. He sped as if winged along the street stop- 
ping not to speak to people, nor to think how he 
appeared to them. It was a ten-block flight! 
And yet with a deadly calmness that amazed him 
he stood before the doctor and told him of the case. 
The reply of the physician was 

'•He U gone — there is no hope." 

The father staggered under the words as if a 
bullet had pierced his heart. 

What happened in the next ten days was Like an 

awful nightmare. 

The physician bade the father return at once, 
and told him what to doj informed him that con- 
vulsions would begin in the next hour, and would 
increase unto tin- end. It was all fearfully ful- 
filled. 



«I4 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

The father laid the Johnlike, yes Christlike boy 
upon the bed; administered medicine and talked 
and read to him with a breaking heart. He was 
reading a story of schoolboy life in which the 
principal character was a noble lad, thinking to 
divert his mind and give him some pleasure. In 
one of the chapters there was a vivid description 
of how the " bully" of the school was surrounded 
by the boys and was getting a well-merited thrash- 
ing; when a sob from the bed revealed Guy in 
tears, and he said 

" Papa don't read that." 

He the loving little fellow, and nearing a heaven 
of love, could not bear to hear of even a bad boy 
being ill used and hurt. 

The first convulsion came on as predicted, and 
the little form was curved as we see in cases of 
meningitis, and the straining moan so peculiar to 
tetanus was issuing from his lips. In ten minutes 
more there was another convulsion. In five min- 
utes there was another. And then they came like 
the waves of the sea in frequency. 

It was after one of these that he said with a 
strange intuition of coming death, 

"Papa I thought I was going to be a preacher." 
It would be hard to describe the melancholy ac- 



GUV. 215 

cent in these simple words. Here was a child of 
eight years wrestling with a problem of the divine 
providence on his deathbed; while his father was 
rling with another by his side. He could not 
endure to tell the child that he was dying. He kept 
hoping against hope, and yet despairing at the 
sain.- time. The utmost he could bring himself to 
do in the way of warning, was to get on his knees 
by the bcd>ide and with his lips near the ear of the 
ho was already to some extent under the in- 
fluence of narcotics say, 

•• ' hiy my darling boy — repeat a tier papa.'" 

When we've been there ten thousand, yean 
. ht shining as the sun 

We've no leu daya to sing God's praise 

Than when we first begun. 

He did so line alter line as it was repeated slow- 
ly and gently to him, although the response was 
with difficulty and pain. 
There never was a kinder physician than the 

on.- who attended upon the sick boy. And he 
tdllful as he was kind and faithful. 

Through his skill the child's lite was prolonged 

. the ninth day when the breath seemed 
: resuscitated him by manipulating 



2l6 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

his chest with his hands, so that the weary wheels 
of life rolled on another day. It was nine o'clock 
on the morning of August 30, 1886, that the fa- 
ther hanging over the now unconscious boy saw 
again that ominous failure of breath. Remember- 
ing how the physician had done, he with streaming 
tears pressed the breast and chest in and out, and 
saw the breath once more restored. But it was 
only for a few minutes; again came the breath 
failure, again the father with a cry of agony 
worked with the precious form, and blew breath 
into the open lips — but it was all in vain ; the heart 
had ceased to beat, the spirit had gone to God, 
and a child life pure and beautiful was translated 
from earth to heaven. 

Did the reader ever go alone with the body of a 
loved one, on boat or car to some distant burial 
place? All that night in the train the father 
traveled with head leaning against the window 
looking at the distant stars and thinking of the 
precious silent form in the dark coffin in the bag- 
gage car ahead. 

He was buried in the city cemetery at Vicksburg 
by the side of his mother. The lonely grave of 
the latter has now a companion mound by its side. 
The little fellow who four years before had so un- 



GUV. 217 

conscious of his loss played by the grave of his 
mother, had soon grown weary of the journey of 
life. He heard the Saviour who loves little chil- 
dren calling him, and so came back and lay down 
beside his mother under the sod. There they 
sk-cp together side by side, beneath the cedar 
and in the midst of the broad sunlit valley 
with the river at one end and the clouds at the 
other. There they are, the lovely young mother 
and the gentle little boy whom every one loved, 
waiting for the coming and the voice of the Son of 
God. 

•• He ta-ted of the cup of life 
Too bitter 'twas to drain: 
He put it meekly from his lips 
And went to sleep again." 

On the marble slab at the head of Guy's grave 
is his name, with time of birth and death, and a 
Scripture verse descriptive of the brief but beauti- 
ful life. "He grew in wisdom and stature, and 
in favor with God and man." 

II;- little trunk still sits in the room of his father 
alter tin- flight <>i ten years. It has within it his 
kindergarten book* and a lew playthings, togeth- 
er with the clothes cap and shoes he last wore. 
tth titty small coins in it which his 
him one by one to assist him to take 



2l8 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

the fifty nauseous draughts of medicine, that after 
all proved of no avail. The little hands that 
counted the money, and that did the beautiful 
kindergarten work are folded over the loving 
heart that has grown still. The trunk that holds 
these treasures is rarely opened ; for to one heart 
it is like unsealing a sepulcher. And when it is 
unlocked, and the eyes rest upon the books and 
playthings ; to this hour the same mortal anguish 
sweeps like a storm over the breast of the father 
as the face is buried in the little garments, and 
the same heartbroken cry ascends that was 
wrenched forth on the morning of that day of 
death. 

What this pen finds hard to describe has been 
powerfully and pathetically drawn by that match- 
less poet of the children, in one of the most touch- 
ing poems he ever wrote. 

Little Boy Blue. 

The little toy dog is covered with dust, 

But sturdy and stanch he stands: 
And the little toy soldier is red with rust, 

And his musket molds in his hands, 
Time was when the little toy dog was new 

And the soldier was passing fair, 
And that was the time when our little Boy Blue 

Kissed them and put them there. 



GUY. 219 

" Now don't vou go till I come " he said 

And don't vou make any noi- 
So toddling off to his trundle bed 

He dreamt of the pretty toys. 
And a- he was dreaming an angel song 

Awakened our little Boy Blue,— 
O the vears are many, the years are long 

But the little toy friends are true. 
Ave, faithful to little Boy Blue they stand, 

Each in the MOM old place, 

ting the touch of a little hand, 

The smile of a little face. 
I they wonder, as waiting these long years through 

In the dust of that little chair, 
What has become of our little Boy Blue 

Since he ki-sed them and put them there. 

. . ••••••• 

■n the writer stops to watch boys at play 
Who arc of the age of Guy. He follows them 
with wet and wistful eyes as they fly the kite, sail 
the tiny boat and laugh and shout in their merry 
pi. iv. His own heart is very tender and full of 

ind prayer tor them all. But memory keeps 

traveling back i<> the dear little boy with the lov- 
ing heart and gentle life, whose body Ifl asleep in 

the graveyard at Vickaburg, and whose soul is 

with the Saviour in the skies. 



CHAPTER XV. 

LITTLE JACK. 

HAD just concluded the morning service at 
the St. Charles Avenue Church in New Or- 
leans, and was descending the front steps of the 
building, when my eyes fell upon a respectable- 
looking white woman standing before me. She 
was evidently a nurse, and carried in her arms a 
baby of about four months of age. The child 
was dressed in pure white and strongly and strange- 
ly attracted me from the first by a face of unusual 
sweetness and beauty. The woman handed me a 
note in female handwriting and signed by a name 
unknown to me, in which I was requested to call 
as soon as possible at a certain number on a cer- 
tain street; that the writer was in great trouble. 

This was the first time I saw little Jack. 

In the afternoon I rang the bell of the house to 
which I had been directed ; was met at the door 
by the lady of the note, whom I found to be a 
woman of about twenty-eight years of age and re- 
markably handsome. 

Inviting me into the parlor she said that she 

(220) 



LITTLE JACK. 221 

had taken the liberty to send for me that I might 
use my Christian and ministerial influence with 
her husband who had been dissipating for weeks 
and who was now in an adjoining room recovering 
from mania a putu. That he had been unmanage- 
able and dangerous : that he had broken the 
glassware hurled knives and every other missile 
that he could find at them and imaginary beings: 
and she in daily terror and miser) could stand 
nothing more. She wanted me to go in and talk 
and pray with him, and above all warn him that 
she would not live with him if he continued Buch 
a life. 

Certainly this was no small request. Here I a 
mere stranger was asked to go into a room where 
a man had delirium tremens, and was throwing 
everything that he could find at inoffensive peo- 
ple, and tell him that he was doing wrong and 
that he must change his life, or as the Georgia 
evangelist would Bay "Quit his meanness." 

It is perfectly wonderful to note the confidence 
which has been inspired for the ministry in the 
people. They are sent for in every kind of trouble. 
They are felt to be excellent lawyers, fairly good 
physicians, first-clasfl advisers, and moflt efficient 

policemen — in a word good for everything. 



222 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

In a few minutes more I found myself in a dark- 
ened chamber and approaching a bed in a remote 
corner, on which I could distinguish the form of a 
man lying. The lady evidently having all confi- 
dence in me, left me to hold the uncertain inter- 
view alone. Drawing near I became conscious 
that the man was gazing at me ; and as I still ap- 
proached, he sat up in bed and looked at me with- 
out a word. 

Extending my hand and taking his, I said " God 
bless you my dear sir, I am so sorry to find you 
unwell." He replied with a thick tongue that he 
was " quite sick." 

Much of the interview has faded from my mind: 
he however saying but little and replying only in 
monosyllables. One thing I said that remains 
clearly with me, and is so impressed on account 
of the curious effect that the speech exercised 
upon the man. Turning to him I said 

"My dear sir why is it that you go on in such 
a course of dissipation ; you have a lovely wife, a 
beautiful child, a sweet home — everything to make 
you a contented man, and cause you to live a true 
temperate noble life." 

The look he turned upon me strangely disturbed 
and impressed me. It seemed to be the gaze of 



LITTLE JACK. 223 

despair. It was a look oi voiceless trouble. He 
never opened his lips. 

Kneeling down 1 prayed with him, commended 
him and family to a loving Christ, and left. But 
the look haunted me; and as I recalled it again 
and again it seemed to have a language that I could 
only partially understand. It was weeks before I 
got the key to the language and saw that the look 
meant " You do not know what you are talking 
about. " 

Fore leaving the house I saw the nurse and 
little Jack in the yard. She was wheeling the 
child in bis carriage. I bent over the cooing baby 
with a voiceless pain and sympathy. 

A few days afterwards I was summoned to an- 
other interview with the lady, who reported that 
her husband was still drinking, and that she had 
red on a course of action that she knew 
would make her husband furious, yet it might 
ed in saving him: and if it did not, she had 
mined to leave him. Alter a few minutes' 

aid 
*• My husband belongs to a very prominent fam- 
ily in It. Tiny ought to know his con- 
dition. They have great influence with him. and 

to tell them now is all that seems to In- left me. 



224 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

So I have written a telegram which I wish you to 
send in your name for me, and after it has been 
sent will you not kindly come by and tell my hus- 
band that you have dispatched the message." 
The telegram read as follows: "The wife of 

your nephew, Mr. V , bids me tell you he needs 

attention and help at once." To this was attached 
my name as pastor of a New Orleans Church. 
In an hour the message was sent; in another 

hour I was sitting by the side of Mr. V , and 

after a little told him that his wife and I had had 
a consultation in reference to himself, and felt that 
we owed it to himself and family to dispatch to 
them his condition. 

With a quick startled look he said 

" What did you say in the telegram? " 

In reply I read a copy of the dispatch: "The 

wife of your nephew, Mr. V , bids me say 

that he needs attention and help at once." With a 
deep groan the man fell upon his back on the bed. 
How little I understood the groan that day; how 
well I knew what it meant a few days later. 

The man paid no further attention to me; and 
though I lingered some minutes he never opened 
his lips again, but lay like a stone with his eyes 
fixed upon the ceiling. 



LITTLE JACK. 225 

All this time I was growing more and more in- 
terested in little Jack. Save my own. I never had 
a child to take such strong possession of my heart. 
Nearly a week had elapsed since mv last visit, 
when I felt so hungry to see him that I could re- 
sist it no longer. So one evening on returning 
from a pastoral round, I determined to make a 
detour before returning home, and take in the 
of little Jack and see how things were get- 
ting on. A> I approached in the twilight I noticed 
that the house was dark. Opening the gate and 
g through the yard I knocked at the door. 
There was no answer. Attn- knocking repeatedly 
to no avail, I opened the door and stood in the 
hall. The whole house was still and appeared for- 
saken, with the exception of a faint gleam of light 
at the end <•! the hall near the kitchen. Walking 
in that direction, and looking through the kitchen 
door I saw tin- Scotch nurse with a taper in her 
hand stirring something in a vessel on a gas stove. 
At my step and voice she looked around with a 
startled ga/e, which was quickly exchanged to one 
who it was. 

11 I knocked a number of times/' I said in ex- 
planation. 

•' I did not hear you," she replied, ''for I was 



226 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

back here in the kitchen getting the baby's sup- 
per ready. He'll be awake now in a little while 
and ready for it." 

" Where is his mother? " I asked. 

" Gone sir." 

" Gone! " I exclaimed. 

" Yes sir — gone for good." 

She had better have said " Gone for bad." 

" Gone where?" I said, looking my surprise. 

"Away up north somewhere." 

"You do not mean to say that she has left her 
child!" 

** Yes sir." 

"Did she say nothing about coming back?" 

" No sir not a word." 

" Where is the father, Mr. V ? " 

" Down town drunk, where he has been for 
nearly a week without coming home." 

I leaned against the wall and stood looking at the 
old nurse whose little taper in her left hand threw 
a gleam of light on her rugged but kindly face. 

Just then there was a sharp peal of thunder and 
a dash of rain against the window. Whereupon 
the nurse taking up the corner of her apron wiped 
her eyes and indulged for a few moments in a de- 
liverance of self-pity. 



r 



LITTLE JAC K. 227 

"Just to think, that here am 1 a lone woman, a 
•tranger in this country, and left here in this big 
empty house with this wee child, and with no 
money and but little provisions, and in all this 
awful weather that we have been having for these 
last few days." Here there was another thunder 
crash that made the tin and iron vessels on the wall 
rattle, and we heard the voice of little Jack partly 
fretting and partly crying, evidently having been 
awakened by the noise from his Bleep. 

\V<- went into the room where he was lying. At 
the sight of the nurse, the lighted lamp and his 
supper, he was soon in fine humor, and with his 
dimpled hands clutching the milk bottle swallowed 
its contents with hearty appetite, while his 
rested first on the nurse and then on myself, stop- 
ping occasionally to give a crow, or make that 
googly sound in his throat that cannot be spelled 
but means perfect animal content. I If was having 
a royal good time, while both of Our hearts were 
aching over •: n child. 

Right then ami there I determined that altho 
ther and mother had given him up, yet little 
Jack should not l.nk for a friend while 1 lived. 

As the child progressed with his supper, the 
nurse made some startling revelations to me. 



228 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

11 Do you know the real trouble in this family? " 
she asked, glancing at me where I sat. 

" No I do not." 

" Well sir, they are not married ! " 

Seeing my astonishment she continued 

" Do you remember when you telegraphed to 

Mr. V 's family in New York, and told him 

about it, and what you had said in the telegram, 
how he fell back on his bed? " 

"Yes," I replied. 

" Well you nearly killed him. He is a reckless 
kind of a man in his life, but was keeping this last 
piece of wickedness from his people who seemed 
devoted to him. But when your telegram saying 
his wife requested you to dispatch to them, that let 
the whole thing out." 

" Why did the woman have me send such a 
telegram? " 

"Well sir I can't tell, unless she hoped it would 
compel him to marry her at once, rather than re- 
turn home and face his shame." 

"When and where did he first meet her?"* I 
asked after a long pause. 

"Mr. V " replied the nurse " came to the 

World's Exposition on business. One night while 
standing in a drug store, this woman came in to 



LITTLE JACK. 2 20. 

buy something, and he was so struck with her 
good looks, that he opened conversation, and 
walked home with her. They soon after rented 
this house and in about a year little Jack was born. 
It war then in answering an advertisement for a 
I got first to know them." 

11 When did you find out all these things you 
have told me? " I asked. 

11 Only lately. Mrs. V if I can call her so, 

told me her Mr- V became so miser- 

able-, and got to drinking so heavily." 

•• Now that little Jack's mother is gone, and the 
father drunk and neglectful of you both, what are 
going to do?" I asked. 

" I don't know what to do sir: nor where to 
turn. I could get work for myself alter awhile I 
reckon, but what is to become of the baby? " 

!<• i ret the cradle I shook the woman's 

hand in farewell and Baid 

"I will stand by you and little Jack." 

I walked home through tin- night, my mind 

usy revolving ' Flow should I act; 

what could be done. A problem was before me. 
In the firsl place my own family consisted of three 
grown bildren. Besides this the 

salary thai umiMiallv small, being entire- 



23O PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

ly inadequate to meet regular expenses, and yet 
here I was proposing to introduce two additional 
members into my family. Still graver than this 
was the question, would the family consent to the 
addition of a "child of shame " to their number. 

For several days I kept the matter in my own 
heart taking counsel of none save God. Mean- 
time the only relief I could obtain was in going up 
late in the evening to see little Jack, and with the 
child in my arms, walk him up and clown the gal- 
lery, or rock him in the lonely house. 

One day I laid the matter before the family. All 
expressed deep sympathy as they heard the touch- 
ing history, but when I suggested that we bring 
little Jack to our home, the answer was that 4 ' it 
was impracticable.*' I have never liked the ex- 
pression from that day to this. 

That evening I took another lonely walk with 
the forsaken bairn. 

The next evening a happy thought came to me. 
I would get my wife to come up and see the child 
in person. So after sunset, she at my request came 
with me to the solitary home. We reached it at 
twilight: and as on a former occasion there was 
no light in the house : the whole building looked 
dark. We stood at the side door and knocked, 



LITTLE JACK. 23I 

and after awhile were admitted by the nurse who 
pointed silently to the baby carriage in which lit- 
tle Jack lay asleep. She then went out to prepare 
the supper. 

My wife and I sat on either Bide looking down 
at the innocent and deeply wronged child. He 
never looked so pretty, and was the picture of 
health and innocence and helplessness as he slept 
ignorant of the shame and wrong done to him, and 
knowing not of the clouds that were gathering in 
his own short future. I saw at once in the tender 
expression of my wife's face that little Jack was 
preaching in his sleep to her with an effectiveness 
that I could not do when awake. 

By and by he began to stir in his slumber, and 
in another minute opened his eyes on the lady at 
his side and stretched his arms toward her. He 
doubtless thought it was his mother. She at once 
stooped clown and took him in her arms, and when 
the little fellow laid his dimpled hand on her cheek 

I knew that he had conquered. 

We said nothing on our homeward trip through 

the dark, but just before going to sleep that night, 
the wife said "We will take little Jack." 

The next morning by ten o'clock the nurse and 

child wen- .it our home as recognized members Oi 



232 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

the family. The news gradually crept out and 
certain gentlemen meeting the writer would say 
with a smile, that they knew of several other chil- 
dren ready to be adopted if I desired them, etc., 
etc. And meanwhile they talked thus, and were 
amused at their own speeches, I wondered how 
people could smile over such a pathetic history. 

Little Jack lived with us about four months, 
when troubles began. The mother could not be 
heard from, the father had vanished, and the 
nurse getting tired of the job gave notice that she 
intended leaving. With the slim income that year 
it was impossible to pay what she demanded. 
Moreover as the summer advanced the salary re- 
ceipts fell off so seriously that the cook had to be 
discharged. Still another trouble came in the seri- 
ous illness of little Jack. The child drooped and 
steadily grew worse in spite of our care and the 
attention of our family physician. How my heart 
used to ache those days over the little sufferer, 
who would stretch his arms out for me whenever 
I came near him. 

In the midst of all this came the last announce- 
ment of the nurse that she must leave. The par- 
ents she said had forsaken the child and would 
never remunerate her for what she had done or 



LITTLE JACK. 233 

might yet do, and she intended she said to Leave 
the next day. Aa I looked at our own servantless 
house, the already overburdened members of the 
family, it seemed that everything was against the 
poor little " cast off" and the man who Btrangely 
loved him. 

At this juncture some one came to my family 
and told them that there was a Lovely home lor for- 
saken and motherless children near by, with airy 
rooms, spotless beds, and perfect care and attention 
from nurses and physicians. That in the present 
distress it was the very place for our sick wait'. 

When first told me, it brought a stab as of a 
knife to the heart, the idea of parting with the 
child and placing him at an asylum, even though 
it should be of the very best character. But the 

were urged that the child could have even 

better Care there than at our home, and that when 

he recovered I could bring him back again. 

mting we visited the " Children's 

ami found true all that had been said 

. homelikeness, ami tenderness 

of matron and mir.v . Even then with an aehing 

ted and have regretted that consent 

with I 1 with tears ten thousand 

thousand times since that day. The fact th.it I 



234 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

did what seemed best and wisest, and indeed what 
I was actually driven to do, has failed to allay the 
pang. 

The parting on the doorstep of our children 
with little Jack I well remember. The sick child 
with head drooping on the shoulder of the nurse 
took but little notice of the merry farewells from 
the thoughtless little ones about him. But Guy 
graver as usual than the others, waved his hand 
from where he was sitting in the hall, and said 
" Good-bye little Jack." 

Ah ! my blessed Saviour, they are both with you 
in heaven to-day ! 

The nurse and I took the little sick one to the 
"Home." The greeting given him was all that 
my sorrowing heart could desire. A special nurse 
with sweet motherly face was singled out for him. 
Into her arms with charges and promises I laid the 
little fellow after kissing him while the tears ran 
down my face like rain. Tearing myself away I 
heard him crying and looking back saw him 
stretch his arms after me. My heart was like an 
aching lump in my throat, and I could hardly see 
how to get back to the carriage. This was the 
last time I ever saw little Jack. He was much 
nearer heaven than anv one dreamed. 



LITTLE JACK. 

This was Saturday. I had to preach as usual 
twice on Sundav, and proposed going over to the 
"Home" on Monday morning to see this child 
that I found myself loving like my own. 

Aj I was in the sitting room at home about the 
breakfast hour on Monday, a messenger from the 
" Home " came running in and said breathlessly, 

'• I'm Bent over to tell you that little Jack is 
dead." 

For several minutes everything looked black to 
me; I could not speak, and thought I would fall 
from my chair. Then nature came to my relief 
and I bowed my face in my hands and wept as 
people weep for their own children. 

Does all this seem strange to the reader? Does 
it seem remarkable that a poor little forsaken 
child of shame could have such a hold on a 
man's heart who was in no wise blood related, 
by the blood of Christ. Remarkable or 
:t may appear, yet it was BO, and is so 
still. I loved the child and still love him. And 

I have asked God to let this little one who was 

his own parents on earth, be as my 
child in heaven, anil in a BW( belong t<> 

Telegrams were sent North to the parents, but 



2 3^ PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

there was no response. And so I took charge 
of the body, and with wife and children accom- 
panying me, we laid him to rest in a vault belong- 
ing to the family in Girod Street Cemetery in 
New Orleans. There the little fellow rests; and 
there I have gone repeatedly while living in the 
city, and stood by the door of the tomb and 
thought of and hungered to see him. 

On All Saints Day when the whole city with 
flowers go out to deck the graves of loved ones: 
little Jack was always remembered by his one 
earthly friend. A strange spectacle truly to the 
world; a preacher of a large city church stand- 
ing by the grave and grieving over the ashes of 
a poor little forsaken child of shame. But Christ 
and the angels understood it, and so it became a 
sweet and sacred spot. 

I live now nearly a thousand miles away from 
the grave of the child, yet in memory I often re- 
visit it. The one unhealing regret and ache in 
my heart being that the little fellow did not go to 
heaven from our home, and the one ever fresh 
and beautiful hope in my soul is that one of these 
days, Guy, little Jack and I will walk the beautiful 
and healthful fields of heaven together. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

KM MA C • 

71 DOZEN young ministers were on their way 
&L to the scat of the Conference, to be held that 
year in the beautiful city of Natchez on the banks 
of the Mississippi. They were a day ahead of the 
great body of the Conference as they were under- 
graduates and had to undergo an examination 
through committees on certain theological studies 
for the year just passed. 

The young preachers had taken passage on one 
Of the handsomest steamers that floated upon the 
great " Father of Waters: " and seated upon the 

forward upper deck, tossed the conversational 

ball and took in the picture before them of the 

I yellow unfolding river, the blue and white 

flying before the pulling boat, the waves 

from the steamer breaking in foamy crests upon 

the distant banks, and the white clouds piled up in 

•v upon tl horizon. 

of the young preachers made a motion 
that in view of the slim salaries of the past vear. 



2 3& PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

one of their number should approach the cap- 
tain of the boat and see if any reduction would 
be made in their fare as ministers of the gospel. 
The writer was delegated to make the speech; 
and so approaching the captain politely, he asked 
if such a favor could be extended to the dozen 
young clergymen. 
The short reply was 

" Yes if you regard yourselves as objects of 
charity.'' 

The spokesman replied at once, " We do not 
feel ourselves to be such and so could not ask or 
receive a reduction of fare in that way;" and 
touching his hat courteously he returned to the 
upper deck where he made known the result of 
his fruitless mission to the surprised preachers. 

It was noticed that the captain looked restless 
after that all the morning. 

Later in the day the chief clerk approached 
the clerical band who had dismissed the circum- 
stance from their minds, and said that the captain 
had reconsidered the matter, and if the preachers 
would call at the office he would be pleased to 
have returned to them a part of the fare they had 
already paid. The message was so courteously 
sent, and graciously given that the visit to the 



BMMA C -39 

office was made by one and all and certain mon- 
eys changed hands the second time. 
• •••••••• 

Eight \ears alter this scene, the spokesman of 
the pr.-achers that day found himself in charge of 
one of the leading churches in the city of Ne* 
ELDS. 

One day he received a sudden summons to call 
at a house on one of the prominent avenues, to 
prav with a young lady who was dying. It was 
the home, and the young lady was the daughter of 
th.- captain who years before had taken part in the 
incident i 

I t u | : iul home. The birds were twit- 

tering in the Bhrubbery about the house. The 
sunshine poured in a silver glory through the 

open lace-hung windows. The Bervanta moved 

about over the thick carpets, and 
friends earn.- in and out with sorrowful faces and 
whispered together under their breath. The 
mother a pictUl nut the preacher in one 

of the parlors, and told him that Emma was dying. 

that she would soon be gone, and as yet was un- 

.red and unreconciled to die; that he had 

been sent for to pray tor her, but that he must not 

let her foe! in his prayer that she was a dying girl. 



■24° PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Here indeed was a difficult and most painful 
task. To pray for a dying unconverted person in 
such a way as not to excite uneasiness or alarm. 

With earnest inward supplication to God for 
help and guidance, the preacher was led to the 
room of sickness on the second floor, and saw the 
beautiful girl marked for death lying in an invalid 
chair near the window and gasping for breath. 
The prayer was uttered in a low fervent tone, and 
while no allusion was made to approaching death, 
yet the pleading for salvation was such, and the 
unconscious solemnity in the voice was such, that 
when the man of God withdrew, and as the door 
closed upon him, the girl wrung her hands and 
cried out in an accent of agony 

" He prayed as if I were going to die." 

At once soothing voices replied to the contrary. 
But the Holy Spirit strove, and the conviction was 
so deeply wrought within, that on the morrow 
while the mother prayed by her side, the burden 
of sin was lifted, and the light of pardon and 
peace shone into and out from her soul. 

At once she demanded to see the preacher who 
had been with her the day before. And from 
that time until nearly two days afterwards he was 
frequently by her side and saw the work of God 



EMM \ C • 24I 

go on in her with a rapidity beauty and glory that 
he had t; . r before seen equaled. Stationed in 
an adjoining room to be near her, the instant a par- 

: would be over she would request his pres- 
ence, and then would follow another season of re- 
ligious conversation, singing in a low voice, and 

. On each return to her side he would see 

epening peace of God, the ineffable purity 
and blazing holy joy that declared the swift ripen- 
ing for the skies. She became a preacher, and 
delivered such messages, exhortations and warn- 
ings to every one who came in to see her, that the 
whole house was in tears. She overflowed with 
I shone in her eyes, poured from her lips 
and literally beamed from her face. Her voice 

ted with this love seemed to break every 
heart who heard it, and she had a word for every 

one. 

Her father the captain, was not a member of 
arch. When lie bent over the bed he tried 

ik in a bright cheery voice, as it' they were 
all expecting great things on her account and that 

she would BOOn be Up again. How it wrung his 

• ' 1 a t was not in 

him, brave words when his own 

pair. 
L6 



242 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

She looked up at him and taking both his hand» 
in hers said 

"Papa — you have been — such a good papa — to 
me. 

I saw the strong man tremble all over, while his 
tears rained upon the soft white coverlet. 

"But papa," she continued gasping for breath 
" I want you to be good — and love God — and 
meet me in heaven — won't you papa?" 

In spite of the sobs that choked the captain, I 
heard his voice which had often rung out in stormy 
nights on the river in loud tones of command, all 
softened and tender say 

" Yes my daughter." 

There was not a dry eye in the room. In the 
preacher's heart there was such a pain of sup- 
pressed feeling that he longed to cry aloud. 

Again the white hand went up and stroked the 
father's face bent over her; and we could just 
hear the cooing words, 

" You dear — good papa — I do so love you — 
papa." 

Nothing but sighs and sobs all through the 
room. 

"Papa" spoke the girl again "won't you — 
promise — me — something? " 



L.MMA C • ^43 

•• Yes darling." 

" Won't you — promise me papa — to ioin — the 
Church?" 

All could see the struggle that went on in the 
captain. Many pen tried to get him to 

join for years: but he had laughed joked and 
tossed off every such BOggestion. 

•• Won't you papa " said the gasping voice, and 
again the white hand touched and patted the 
weather -b -k of the man bowing over 

her. 

" Won't you — my dear papa " 

A moment's pause, and then came the choking 
reply " Yea niy daughter," and the man bowed 
his head on the bed, while the white lingers of his 
dying child Btrayed through his hair, and such a 
look of gladness shone upon her face. 

A few minutes afterwards in the parlor, the 

her approached the captain who was leaning 

mantel with his handkerchief over his 

With a gentle voice the minister s.iiil 
" I am so glad that you are going to join the 
Church." 

••Yes" replied thi- Captain uneasily "one of 

I intend so doing." 

thai the enemy was 



244 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

at work, and so softly going to the bedside of the 
dying girl he said 

" Miss Emma, much depends on you now. You 
must get your father to promise not to postpone 
giving himself to Christ and the Church, but to do 
it in the near future." 

At once she sent for him, and at the very utter- 
ance of the word "papa " the man utterly melted. 

" What is it my child? " 

" Papa I want you — to join the Church — right 
now — by my side — won't you papa." 

Again we saw the strong man go down beside 
the bed, and with a gush of tears he sobbed 

" Yes daughter I will." 

It was a never-to-be-forgotten spectacle. One 
that for tenderness and solemnity we have never 
seen surpassed. The writer has taken many peo- 
ple into the Church, but never before did the cer- 
emony seem so touching and beautiful. The Cap- 
tain stood by the side of the deathbed; the dying 
daughter had her eyes fixed lovingly upon her 
father; other members of the family with friends 
were grouped in different parts of the room. The 
words of the service always impressive, never 
sounded so weighty and so beautiful as they did 
that night; and when in conclusion we knelt in 



KM MA C . 245 

prayer, all felt that heaven had come clown and 
Christ was in the room. 

This was not all that happened on that memora- 
ble night. 

Among the sorrowing persons in this house of 
trouble was a young man who was engaged to the 
dying girl. They were to have been married in a 
few months when this ease of galloping consump- 
tion rudely broke into the plan of earthly happi- 
ness. How it came about we cannot tell, but the 
whisper crept through the room that the young 
couple so soon to be separated desired to be mar- 
ried that very night. 

What hail to be done, must In- done quickly, 
and so the arrangements were made speedily. 
The license was obtained, loving hands prepared 

the bride and placed her in a hall-reclining posi- 
tion in tin- invalid chair. As tin- preacher entered 

. ritual in hand, his evrs fell at once on 
Emma C lying on lMl! chair robed in a white 

ingle white Sower in her hair, a bunch 

in her hand, and her face as white 

ian marble. Sin- never looked lovelier. The 
preacher u I [ere is a three- 
fold bride. > the bride Of death, the bride 
man who stood bv her, and the bride oi 



246 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Jesus Christ. Each one claimed her, and there 
were unmistakable signs that she had accepted 
all. The stamp of death was on her face, the 
love for the affianced shone in her eye, and 
her devotion to the Saviour was evident and par- 
amount. 

What a strange sorrowful service that marriage 
ceremony was. The words, " So long as ye both 
shall live," had a mournful sound indeed. "So 
long!" Alas! — they were to be parted in a few 
hours. 

The family and a dozen or more friends were 
busy in wiping the tears that flowed fast from their 
eyes. At the conclusion of the service the ladies 
present went up to kiss the bride. No one could 
speak a word — for what congratulations could be 
offered at such a time. 

Later on she asked that the Lord's Supper 
might be administered, and it was done with only 
the family present. All felt that one of their num- 
ber now taking the bread and wine would soon be 
eating it new in her Father's kingdom in the sky. 
Here were three religious services in one night 
and in the same room. 

Emma C lived through the next day into 

the following night. At midnight she sent for the 



EMMA C • 247 

writer who saw her for the last time. Turning 
her luminous eyes upon him she said 

•' Talk to me." 

God helped him, and soothing strengthening 
thoughts sprang into his mind and tell from his 
lips in her behalf. In addition he related the in- 
cident of a young girl in Germany, who found 
God while on a sick, bed in Heidelberg; how she 
glorified him by writing little poems of Christian 
resignation, which were published by a friend, 
and were scattered, read and blessed to the souls 
of thousands of wounded soldiers in the Franco- 
Prussian war, so that man}- hundreds were brought 
to Christ. Throughout the narration her eyes nev- 
er left the face of the speaker. She then said with 
laboring breath 

44 Sing to me." 

And the preacher sang M Rest for the Weary " 
and " Home of the Soul." 

" Kneel down now — and pray — lor me," she 
gasped. 

The preacher did so, and God helped him to 
pray. The Spirit gave tenderness and Utterance. 
He felt that the words were undergirding her and 
she was being blessed. She thanked him with that 
dUtrc^inglv short breath, and said 



248 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

" Now kiss me good-bye." 

He did so, and with the tears falling on his cheek 
walked softly and noiselessly out of the room. He 
never saw her alive again. 

In two hours more Christ called her; she heard, 
and went up with a smile to meet him and to be 
with him forever. 
**** ****!* 

Some blessed truths or lessons are obtainable 
from this piece of life history- 

One is the power of Christ to make the young 
cheerfully leave a world that is bright and full of 
hope and promise ; joyfully lay their bodies in the 
tomb, while the spirit with an unutterable happi- 
ness flies to the bosom of him who made it. 

Another lesson is that after many efforts in 
which we have despaired of saving our friends, 
God still has ways left that can bow the mightiest 
will, and make a strong man as tender and help- 
less as a little child. 

A third truth is that like Samson, some people 
will slay more for God in their death than they 
did in life. 

A fourth lesson or teaching from the above life 
story is to be kind and courteous to all. For all 
we know the man we meet on the cars or on the 



EMMA v. . 249 

boat may in after years be the means in God's 
hands of leading a dying child to God, in the time 
of trouble be a heavenly friend, and whose words 
and presence will bind up our hearts and keep 
them from breaking, when the dead one is lying 
still and white in the parlor, the sun is set, no star 
is out, a black storm seems rushing over the life, 
and night for awhile seems to be everywhere. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

PROFESSOR S . 

tGOOD lady member of our Church, a widow 
of some years' standing, read in the morn- 
ing paper one day the following notice : 

WANTED. 
By a young man, a teacher of music, a quiet room with one 
meal a day at a reasonable price. The home of a widow pre- 
ferred. Address Prof. S , Box 900 City. 

This small notice put quite a little flutter under 
the half-mourning bodice of Sister Smiley, and 
as she rolled the matter about in her mind, she 
"dreamed dreams" not that a mortal never 
dreamed before, but — well it is no matter: only 
the words " young man " — " widow preferred" — 
nestled somewhere very pleasantly in her cardiac 
region; and mental queries and affirmations would 
spring up such as "who can tell," "stranger 
things have happened," etc. 

In a word she answered the advertisement, and 

on the next day Prof. S was settled in the 

quiet room. 

He was a heavy-built young man of about twen- 
(250) 



l'ROFESSOR S ■ 251 

tv-six, with a smooth German-looking face. His 
hair was brown and hung almost to his shoulders. 
He had also a Professor-musical look. 

The contract was for one meal a day and that 
one to be dinner: but Sister Smiley's warm heart 
melted, and she threw in lagniappe as they say in 
New Orleans, in the shape of a fragrant cup of 
coffee each morning; which cup she prepared 
with her own hands, and then tapping at the Pro- 
fessor's window would hand it to him with a smile 
and with what was intended for a blush. How 
grateful the Professor was, and how he also smiled 
as he took the cup and said it reminded him of the 
e be had drunk across the ocean in his boy- 
hood home. 

On the following Sabbath Sister Smiley appeared 
in her pew at church with the good-looking pro- 
fessor at her ride. lit- requested an introduction 
. md said that he was "most happy 

to kn 1 whom he had heard so much." 

The next Sunday he was again in the pew with 
Mi . Smiley, but this time seemed to be very sad. 

i 1 xplanation of his melancholy which was ap- 
• to all was given to the preacher by the Pro- 
fessor's landlady. dd that the Professor had 
just received a letter from his home across tin 



252 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

telling him of the severe illness of his father. That 
the Professor had desired Mrs. Smiley to request 
an interview with the preacher ; that he felt in his 
present sorrow and anxiety he needed advice and 
spiritual consolation. 

Of course the preacher said certainly ; and step- 
ping over to the pew where sat the drooping pro- 
fessor of music, he told him to call at his study the 
next morning. The Professor was in such a mel- 
ancholy state of mind, that he did not lift his head, 
but simply pressed the preacher's hand, and said 

" I am not a Christian, but want to be one, and 
feel that you can do me good." 

All this moved the preacher, and the invitation 
was renewed. 

On the next morning the Professor put in his 
appearance. He was still quite sad, and sighed 
heavily. 

The preacher begged him to unburden his 
heart. 

There was little however to say more than had 
been told before. His father was quite low. 
There was little likelihood of his recovery. Duty 
seemed to call him home at once to England where 
his parents were living, but there were serious dif- 
ficulties in the way. First he was the main sup- 



PROFESSOR S • 253 

port of his family. Second he had large classes 
of pupils here who paid well; and to give them up 
would be to cut his parents out of their support. 
Third he could not get such positions in England 
as he had here. What must he do; go or stay? 

The preacher told him that he honored his de- 
votedness to his parents, and felt a deep sympathy 
for him in the strait of conflicting duties. That 
he could afford to wait a few days before taking 
such a serious step as giving up the engagements 
he had by which he supported his father and 
mother: that possibly his father might get better 
etc. etc. 

The interview was concluded by the preacher 
praying a fervent prayer for the Professor kneel- 
ing by his side; in which he begged that the la- 
ther might be rest.. red. and the Professor himself 
jrted to God. In a few minutes more the 
With a muffled voice ami averted head to 

hide doubtless his tears thanked the preacher for 
his kindness and departed. 

ter the preacher received .1 hastily 

from the Professor saying ■■ Please 
call at my room at Mrs. Smiley's and see me— I 

rrow." 
re almost illegible, they had been 



254 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

written in such haste and agitation. Accompany- 
ing his letter was a note from Mrs. Smiley saying 
" Come as soon as you can. The Professor has 
just received a letter from England. His father is 
dead." 

In a few minutes the preacher was on his way, 
threading the streets, turning up here, and turning 
down there on his way to the residence of Mrs. 
Smiley. 

Ringing the bell, that good lady with a sympa- 
thetic sorrow on her face for her boarder's trouble 
answered in person, and conducted her pastor into 
the Professor's room. He however was not in, 
but in the center of the apartment were two chairs 
drawn one before the other. On one the professor 
had evidently sat, while in the seat of the other 
was a crumpled white handkerchief and a letter of 
some ten or twelve pages with a deep black border 
on every page. There was also a small Bible open 
and leaning upon the back of the chair. The 
black-bordered letter was doubtless the epistle of 
heavy tidings, that had been spoken of by Mrs. 
Smiley. 

The preacher, Dr. Gullible had just time to 
glance around and take in these things when the 
Professor entered from a side room. His hair was 



PROFESSOR S . J55 

dishevelea and his eyes that were cast down looked 
red as if he might have been weeping. Hastily 
taking the preacher's offered hand, the Professor 
still with averted countenance Bat down and buried 
his face in his hands. 

'• I am verv BOny" said Dr. Gullible " to hear 
of your great loss, and wish much that I could help 
vou." 

"Your sympathy is a help" replied the be- 
i man from behind his hand. 

••Vou must remember" gently put in the 
preacher H that our parents, as much as we love 
them must go — but it is very sweet to feel that if 
wt- ghre ourselves to Christ we shall see them 
again." 

"Yes" sighed the Professor "I know all that. 
But just now I am thinking of my poor mother left 
alone in London with all my brothers and sisters 
on her ban 

•• I low many have you " was the querj . 

•venteen" said the professor from behind 
his hand. 

M Seventeen I " the preacher was about to ejac- 
ulate, but checked himself and uttered instead a 

quiet " 11 

'• Yes sir " said the man of music. 



256 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

After more ghostly consolation from the minis- 
ter, the Professor with a sudden burst of frankness 
said 

"Doctor what do you think I ought to do; 
stay here or go to my mother ? ' ' 

" Did you say Professor that your mother has 
no means, and no one to look to but yourself?" 

"Yes sir." 

"You are the oldest of the eighteen children, 
are you not?" 

"Yes sir." 

"I dislike" said the preacher "to advise in a 
matter so important, but I cannot but feel im- 
pressed that your duty is to go home and be with 
your mother, and be a father as well as brother to 
your sisters and brothers." 

"That is exactly the way I feel about it, and I 
will do so " spoke up the Professor with consider- 
able animation. 

So ended the second interview. The Professor 
first asked Dr. Gullible to pray with him before 
he left. This was done most heartily. The Pro- 
fessor again thanked the preacher, and Dr. Gulli- 
ble took leave of the musical man who followed 
him out to the gate, renewing the thanks for the 
relief he had given him, while Mrs. Smiley who 



PROFESSOR B . -o7 

had heard every word through the door, now 
standing on the porch wiped a tear out of the 
corner of her eye as the vision of the approaching 
D ruse before her. 

"He is so young to have so much trouble" Mrs. 
Smiley remarked later to her sister in the kitchen, 
while she was preparing an extra cup of coffee for 
the Professor who had just complained of a sensa- 
tion of faintne 

" He m ra Bister t«» be with him" 

•• You had better say a wife" precipitately re- 
plied Mrs. Smiley as >he poured the amber-colored 
kina cup, upon the top of rich cream 
and white loaf sugar. 

furtive glance at Mrs. Smiley 

Mivious of the look daintily wiped off a tiny 

speck from tin- Baucer with the edge of her white 

apron, and carried the Bteaming fragrant beverage 

1 , ( ; . Bitting in 

urch, there came a hasty Btep 

then a quick knock at the door. 

••< I out the Doctor cheerily. 

Immediately ad next the form oi Prof. 

S . 

17 



258 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

" Take a seat " said the preacher noticing with 
surprise the worried brow and heated appearance 
of the visitor. 

The Professor took his broad-brimmed hat and 
fanned himself, while the worried look deepened. 

'"Doctor" he said at last " I do dislike to be 
running to you with every new disappointment and 
trouble, but I cannot help it, and } r ou have been 
so kind, and I do not know where else to go." 

"What is the new trouble to-day" asked the 
preacher with a kind voice. 

The Professor fanned himself silently for a min- 
ute, and then with one of his bursts of frankness 
that quite became him said 

" I feel that it is best to tell you at once my po- 
sition. You know that I am a teacher of vocal 
and instrumental music. I have classes all over 
the city, and among the best people. Yesterday 
T made up my mind to go straight home to En- 
gland to my mother. The next steamer leaves 
New York for Liverpool on Saturday and this is 
Thursday. I have just time by leaving this even- 
ing on the train to catch that steamer. Knowing 
this I went immediately around and collected what 
is due me from my pupils, and found that I lacked 
just fifteen dollars to pay for my ticket on the 



PROFESSOR S • 259 

steamer. It my rich patrons were here 1 would 
have no trouble in getting this amount advanced 
to me. But as you know, people oi means leave 
the city in the summer, and my well-to-do patrons 
are far away in the North and I do not know where 
to reach them by letter or telegram, and if I did, I 
have not the time to wait for an answer to a letter, 
and I could not say what 1 desired in a telegram. 
So you see I am in a quandary. I know not what 
to do, nor where to turn. And so I hurried here 
to get your advice. 

•r this long explanation the Professor fanned 
a vigorously with his eyes fastened on the 
floor. 

The preacher racked his head lor the " advice " 

that would bridge the gulf produced by a lack of 

dollars. He had -carcely a dollar in his 

OWn pocket, and it was now two weeks off before 

::iall monthly salary would he paid to him. 

r tanned. 

• : meditated. 

the burden .seemed to hi- shitted 

from ' The Professor looked 

• ing, while the coun- 
tenance oi the preacher was clouded with thought. 

The Professor had cast hll load upon Dr. Gul- 



260 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

lible who was having anything but an easy time 
with it. 

The Professor waited. 

He seemed to think that something would hap- 
pen after awhile. And something did happen, 
for Dr. Gullible turned to his desk and wrote the 
following note to a business friend of his down 
town. 

Dear Mr. J : I have met a case of genuine distress in the 

person of Prof. S . His father has just died in England, 

leaving a large and helpless family. The Professor feels it to 
be his duty to go at once to their assistance, but lacks fifteen 
dollars to purchase his steamer ticket. I have not this amount, 
but will in two weeks when the church treasurer will pay me 
my salary. If you will advance the Professor fifteen dollars 
for me, I will repay you at the time mentioned above. By do- 
ing this you will personally oblige your friend, 

A. Gullible. 

Turning to the Professor, and reading the con- 
tents of the note to him, he placed it in an envel- 
ope and said 

" Will you deliver this in person for me? " 

" Certainly," responded the man of music with 
great alacrity. 

" If Mr. J hands the amount to you," said 

Dr. Gullible, " you need not trouble yourself to 
return, but take the money and complete your 



PROFESSOR S . 26l 

preparations for departure, tor I know you have 
but little time to lose." 

It is needless to say how grateful the Professor 

was, and how taken back he was. and how he said 

i times " I will never forget you." 

In a couple of minutes he was gone; and in a 

couple of hours he was back again bearing a sealed 

•:-. Gullible, which that gentleman opened 

and read as foil 

■ullibli-: Your note received. 1 herewith inclose 
vou chi which you will notice I have made subject 

to vour order. 

I believe that Pro! S la a conaummate rascal, and he 

like others has practiced a deception upon vou. Yet I cannot 

\ and so send the check to vou. You must 

Inalat on giving him the money. 

II I cannot get my consent to put the ca^h in his 

hand. Again I warn you >ur friend, 

W. II. J . 

Gullible carefully tore the note into small 

be seen In- ami wound 

tlu- Professor. He next indorsed the check, and 

turned now smiling man of the piano. 

farewell band shake, an- 

would never forget Dr. 

1 le left 
hurriedly th.it he might be able to catch the train 



262 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

going north at five o'clock that afternoon, and so 
be able to make close connection with the steamer 
that was to sail in two days for Liverpool. 

This was two o'clock in the afternoon. At five 
the train was to leave that should bear the Profess- 
or to his widowed mother and seventeen brothers 
and sisters. He would arrive in New York by- 
making close connections along the way just in 
time to take the steamer that sailed on Saturday 
morning. 

At a few minutes before six Mr. J who wrote 

the note to Dr. Gullible was standing on the wharf 
by the river where a long line of steamers was 
moored. Some were loading and others unload- 
ing their cargoes. Great clouds of black smoke 
were pouring from the lofty chimneys of several, 
and one large steamboat filled with an excursion 
party bound for Memphis was ringing one of its 

last bells, when suddenly Prof. S satchel in 

hand appeared walking quickly toward the gang- 
way of the excursion steamer. Mr. J could 

scarcely credit his eyes, that the Professor should 
be here on the wharf moving toward a Missis- 
sippi steamer, when he should be fully fifty miles 
up the railroad on a fast train trying to catch the 
Liverpool steamer. 



PROFESSOR • - 6 3 

Mr. J followed softly behind the uncon- 
scious musical instructor, and seeing that beyond 
all question he was making lor the boat, he drew 
still nearer, and with his mouth close to the man's 
ear, cried out 

"Why Prof. S . 

The f dropped his satchel, and shot up 

in the air fully a foot high, and came down again 
with a most frightened look, which did not be- 
come easier when he saw the dark sarcastic look 
on Mr. J 'a 

•• v. ssor " repeated Mr. J " How 

comes it that you an- over here in this part of the 
city. I thought that you were going to take the 
live o'clock train for New York." 

»' O — I— ah " gasped the Professor, " I— I COn- 
cluded to take tin- boat for Memphis." 

.. The '.,, ,.• for Memphis ! " exclaimed Mr. 

J , -why it will take you four days to get there, 

and you Bald you wanted to go by rail a1 once to 

u-r that leaves Saturday' 

• • v o es — I — ahem! I heard thai it was 
cheapei i1 to Memphis." 

It was pitiful ■ •■ the man gasped. 

Or up and down with 
■aipt that I I OUld expi 



264 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

The passengers were hurrying past them, the 
hackmen were calling out with their usual vocifer- 
ousness, the black smoke from the smokestacks 
poured out in denser volume, and the big bell was 
solemnly tolling its last warning notes. In the 
midst of the scene of confusion and noise Mr. 

J looked at the guilty countenance before him 

and started to speak out his indignant mind. But 
suddenly as if despairing to do justice to the sub- 
ject before him, or filled with disgust that would 
not allow him to tarry another moment, he whirled 
upon his heel and left the fraud to himself. 

The Professor only too happy for such an easy 
letting off, picked up his satchel and vanished over 
the gangway into the steamer. 
** * ****#* 

A month later, a gentleman who happened to be 
one of the excursion party going up the Mississip- 
pi, said to Dr. Gullible "Among the passengers 

was a Prof. S of New Orleans. He started 

out the gayest of the gay when suddenly he en- 
countered Col. A a man from whom he had 

in some way obtained fifty dollars over a year ago; 
when like a flash the Professor disappeared in his 
stateroom and under plea of indisposition swel- 
tered in there for four days. He thought the 



PROFESSOR 6 . -<->:> 

Colonel had not seen him, but A had recog- 
nized him at once and greatly enjoyed running 
him into his stateroom, and keeping him there. 
id laughingly about it, that he would do 
less harm there than on deck. 

••What became of the Professor finally" 
asked Dr. Gullible. 

'• lie sto-.d the smothering atmosphere of the 
stateroom until we readied a town on the Arkansas 
shore above Vicksburg, when without saying a word 
he slipped off the boat with his satchel, and was 
lost to view.'* 

:• months later a lady visiting New Orleans 
f rom ■ . some of her friends in 
the mi I manner of a Prof. S whom 

id had been in her city several months as a 
ad instrumental music 

iched the Liverpool 

aely mother and solitary 

-where were they? 



Smiley beard all these things, 

"He 
room rent and 



266 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

one meal a day besides. To think of all that 
sniffling and taking on about his dead father and 
seventeen brothers and sisters, and me a grinding 
and fixing up extra cups of coffee, and handing 
them through the window to him when I thought 
he looked faint: and he faint with telling lies. 
Oooo-h ! what a sleek-tongued rascal he was. 
Dead father indeed ! I don't believe he had a 
father dead or alive.'" 

" He must have had one once" remarked Dr. 
Gullible with a smile. 

"As for the seventeen brothers and sisters" 
continued Mrs. Smiley excitedly, and paying no at- 
tention to the preacher's remark, " I don't believe 
in one of them. I wonder where my seventeen 
senses were, that I should have swallowed all he 
told me about himself and that precious family." 

"You ought to feel kindly to the Professor" 
said Dr. Gullible slyly. "You remember in his 
advertisement he said he preferred renting a room 
from a widow." 

" Yes he did, the blarney- tongued fraud. He 
knew that widows are lone and unprotected and 
trusting and — Oh ! I just wish Mr. Smiley was 
alive; he would fix him so he would not come 
round fooling widows again, with all his blubber- 



PROFESSOR > • 

ing — and me a grinding coffee for him and fixing 
it up with my best sugar and cream." 

•♦Well, Mrs. Smiley" said Dr. Gullible "we 
have both been badly sold, and will have to ac- 
cept the situation, and be wiser next time." 

•■Yes I know it" responded the excited fe- 
male "but how 1 wish I had him here just for a 
minute ! " 

It was evident to Dr. Gullible that it was well 
for Prof. S that he was not thi 

"Just to think" continued the irate lady tl of 
him a blabbering over that lather's death, who is 
neither dead n"r alive. — aiul me a grinding coffee 
and tapping at the window and passing it in to 
him and a saving " Professor have BOme C< I 

it will make yon feel better — Oooooh I " 



Here - •• let the curtain drop with Dr. Gullible 

on the 1. -it and Mrs. Smiley on the right; .Mr. J 

down town looking out for .-harpers, and Prof. 
S tar away in BOme Other City still receiving 

irdered letters telling of another 

flier, of the continued grief of the 

red mother, and the lorn inteen, 

and brothers. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A PHOTOGRAPH OF A CLASS OF CONFERENCE 
UNDERGRADUATES. 

fHE Conference session was rapidly approach- 
ing. In another two weeks, and upon the 
usually silent and empty streets of a certain inland 
town, there would be seen a line of stovepipe hats 
overshadowing another line of bloated or collapsed- 
looking valises ; all bobbing on together to some 
common center. Two weeks before this descent 
upon and waking up of the aforesaid somnolent 
town, this notice appeared in the Conference organ 
or paper: 

The class of the year will meet the committee in the 

pastor's study, in the basement of the church at Blanktown, 
at nine o'clock sharp, on Tuesday, the day preceding the Con- 
ference. Let all the brethren be in attendance and be prompt. 
I. B. A. Solomon, Chairman. 

This notice was duly and religiously read by all 
the readers of the Advocate. It had a varying ef- 
fect. On many lay perusers who never attended 
a Conference, the words came with a solemnity 
that the booming of cannon does to the one who 
never witnessed a battle. Visions of spectacled 
(268) 



A PHOTOGRAPH OF UNDERGRADUATES. 269 

professors and students with corrugated brows, 
and text-books the size of Webster's Unabridged, 
and frequent and disastrous failures, floated 
thiough the minds of the distant reader of that 
solemn notice. The effect on the old preachers 
was quite different. A close observer could have 
noticed the heels of a quickly tripped-up smile ap- 
pear and vanish in the corner of the mouth and 
I will nut explain the laugh in the eye. 
Perhaps the recollection of their own examination 
came suddenly up; perhaps they had been behind 
some curtain, and discovered that what at a dis- 
appeared to be a lion, was a meek-laced 
apothecary's clerk who had been hired to wrap 
himself in a lion's skin and roar. Truly, the no- 
roared like a dove." 
The smile in the eye arose from the mental ap- 

.: of the absolute necessity of the notice. All 

fa j ); . young and old, knew well that the 

* to meet in Blanktown; that the 
11 took place on Tuesday preceding the 
ision; that the committee met at nine 

o'clock, and very naturally in tin- only Methodist 
church in town. Right here, however, I8 seen the 
full beauty of the notice. The bishop and preach- 
ers supposed that if the undergraduates COUld reach 



270 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

town and find the church, that possibly, all things 
being favorable, they might be able to discover 
their several Examining Boards in one of the three 
or four rooms that opened into the basement. But 
the framer of the clarion call was more consider- 
ate. He designates the spot itself upon which the 
victim is to be strangled. He rushes out into the 
basement, so to speak, lays hold upon the be- 
wildered members of his class, who are about to 
be lost in the intricate windings and corridors of 
the church, and dragging them after him, just as 
the clock strikes nine, he lays them on the altar, 
viz., the pastor's study. Hence, the smile of ap- 
proval in the old preacher's eye. 

The effect of the notice on the class to be ex- 
amined was remarkable. Low-spirited before, 
they now became exceedingly depressed. We all 
remember the feelings awakened within us under 
a certain invitation of a dentist, who pressed us to 
arrange our physical economy in a reclining chair 
while he proceeded to kill two or three nerves and 
extract a couple of jaw teeth. So felt this class. 
The word " sharp " that followed " nine o'clock " 
went through them like a knife. And the ex- 
pression, " Meet us in the basement," was in 
mournful consonance with their state of mind. 



A PHOTOGRAPH OI UNDERGRADUATES. -7 I 

Several almost concluded not to go to the Confer- 
ence at all. 

• ever, they all start. And the eventful 

much-thought-uf Tuesday arrives, and throws its 
peculiar light on the earth. The class assembles, 

but alas! tor the vanity of official bulletins, it is 

ten o'clock and not nine when they sit down. 

And not in the pastor's study. That was to he 

■ral rendezvous: but alter much 

wandering up and down stairs, the cla>s with the 

committee at the head, finally alter much hesita- 

I in a dark moldy-looking place called 

om, where the chairs in utter 

• spirit, had cast dust «»n their heads, 

while the walls seemed to be trickling with the 

ey are at last — the lambs 

and tl • the >hrep and the shearer. The 

..u'ply ami anxiously at the 

shearers; but it is the sheareri now who arc dumb 

and open DOl 'heir mouths. It is felt to be .1 -ol- 
eum time. 

T inn. in takes his Beat a little forward of 

ommitteemen. They seem to defer 

awhile •■• " not wisdom. The • 

dry lips ami throati and 

d QOW and thrn an 



272 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

outbreak of hysterical laughter, subsides into 
decorous and yet awful silence. They are ar- 
ranged in the form of a semicircle, their variety, 
temperament and attainment, presenting a study. 

There are just ten of them. There ought to be 
eleven; but Brother Eleven is not there; neither 
does he appear at noon, nor at night. But on the 
morning of the third day of the Conference he 
puts in a woe-begone appearance, and renders a 
pathetic recital of how he started in full time, but 
failed to make connection with everything from a 
passenger train down to a plantation mule ; in fact, 
he missed everything but the creeks. In these, 
with their friends and relatives, the bayous and 
swamps, he became involved, and this which the 
Conference now beholds is what is left of himself. 
Brother Eleven is a remarkable man, and we-H 
known by the bishops. 

Brother Ten, if possible, is more remarkable. 
He had entered the room boldly, sat down firmly; 
but at the last moment, just when the chairman 
had opened the first booK and had parted his lips 
for the first question, Brother Ten backed square- 
ly down and begged to be continued another year 
in the course of study. He said that he had not 
had time to more than glance at half of the books ; 



A PHOTOGRAPH or UNDERGRADUATES. 273 

that he had been so busy; that his child had been 
sick; that his brother had been on the grand jury; 
that his wife had gone to visit her mother; and 
many other things had taken place, all of which 
kept him from being the devoted student his heart 
>d to be. 

ther Ten went down so suddenly out of sight 
from the expectations of the committee and the 
calculations of the class, that quite a sensation was 
produced. An uneasy feeling as if quicksands 
and ragged-earth openings were sprinkled about, 
stirred every heart. The committee was restless 
for awhile, evidently expecting other vanishings 
:i the track, while the class was 
only too plainly stirred and shocked by this defec- 

i one whom they calculated would answer 

nth of the questions propounded. The look 
born of tin n additional burden, 

•ttled on them. There was a spiritual clos- 
D in battle when a soldier 

in the platoon; and in each eye there wa 

train and agony of B mental calling upon all 

that v. up and assist its owner. 

1 i the nervousness, a silence 

that I Qed, even as our Stratum 

: '11111 in the 



274 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

bowels of the earth. Meanwhile Brother Ten 
moved his seat out of the circle, looking subdued 
and unhappy and a trifle foolish. 

Ten Httle blackbirds sitting on a pine ; 
One flew away, and there were nine. 

I remember once to have seen a young horse 
bear down at full speed toward a ten-rail fence 
with mane and tail flying, and with evident intent 
to clear it at a bound ; when just as I expected the 
grand rise and flight in the air, suddenly the horse 
stopped, wheeled short off and with most subdued 
and shame-faced demeanor went to cropping the 
grass in the fence corner. Never was there such 
a metamorphosis. 

Brother Nine was a heavy-set good-natured man, 
with an abundance of adipose tissue and a re- 
markably slow transmitting set of afferent and effe- 
rent nerves. Impressions that broke with instanta- 
neous flash and gleam on some brains traveled 
with dignity and deliberateness to the nerve cen- 
ters of this brother's occiput; and after resting 
awhile there, as staid and well-poised people at 
stopping places finally do, wrote back that all was 
well and sent the answer by a kind of mental 
stagecoach process. 

I had once a cousin who was a well-to-do 



A PHOTOGRAPH OP UNDERGRADUATES. -75 

planter, but whose intellectual and physical ma- 
chinery were regulated according to the fashion 
just mentioned. A voung lady riding with him 
one day threw out some casual remark. My 
cousin rode on three miles without a word. Mean- 
time the idea contained in the remark had not 
been idle. It had been traveling steadily all that 
while along the highways thrown up for the pas- 
toward the brain. When my 
in had gone one and a half miles the cmes- 
tion reached its destination. My cousin's mind 
ed it, turned it over and over, and viewed 

m every side. By negative process of 

thought lie made it !e>s, by various inductions 
and deductions he stripped it, and by the em- 
ployment of different intellectual laws and forces, 
analysed it, and BO finally came to a conclusion. 
: at this point at the end of the third 

mile, when he cleared his throat and thus dehV- 
himself : 

tiii! Mary what was that you said ? " 

Brother Nine had a deliberate mind like my 

. : .ck and rath speech had 

n charged upon him. Brother Nine that 

bout one Question in twenty. One 

.• the bn u mat he 



276 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

never knew when he was right and when he was 
wrong. This saved him, of course, a great deal 
of mortification and suffering. At the conclusion 
of the day's examination he was in as profound 
ignorance of his status or whereabouts in the es- 
timation of the committee as a man blown up on 
a steamboat is doubtful about his present locality 
and approaching landing place. 

Brother Eight was wiry, nervous, and sharp- 
featured. He spent the day in squirming on his 
seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs, sighing 
like a grampus, and putting questions to the com- 
mittee. The chairman mildly told him that he 
(Brother Eight) was there to answer questions, 
not to ask them ; but the gentle irony was lost. 
The fact was that Brother Eight had not studied 
the course; he had skimmed it and had a nebu- 
lous idea of a very small portion. Hence he 
questioned. After the manner of politicians he 
buttonholed the chairman. Poetically, "he fas- 
tened him with his eye." Socially, he held him 
with his tongue. He was, so to speak, in the 
temple with the doctors, not answering, but ask- 
ing them questions. He tried to draw forth the 
chairman's opinion on the various points that were 
up for the exercise of the class. He became 



A I'HOTOGRAI'if OF UNDERGRADUATES. :;; 

mightily anxious to know whether the chairman 
agreed with Watson or Wesley. He besought 
him his opinion of the atonement ; what he thought 
of the logical construction of a sentence, and what 
he thought of any question before them, and then 
:d with breathli Final] . the com- 

mittee growing wary a> well as weary. Brother 
Eight became suddenly concerned in matters out- 
study and asked the 
chairman if he thought that the moon was inhabited. 
Brother S et two inches in his 

Being lonely iii his situation in midair, he 
had encouraged his vertebral column to incline 
trd the children of men, so as he 

walked or sat he took the form of the letter C. 
With a kind, good-natured face, he looked forth 

Id from c<\ nd laughed 

riously at every witticism or a wit- 

. d from the lips of any mem 

i under two 

'hat while he hail been 

studying . lithfully, yet he had 

that he had devoted himself 

her getting hold Oi the 

author. I lis other 

IllS inarm: the his id<-as and 



278 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

thought accumulations in words. To put it as he 
expressed himself when questioned : " I know what 
you mean, I see what you are driving at, and I 
have the answer in my head, but I haven't the 
words to express myself." 

This naturally gave Brother Seven a great ad- 
vantage over the class as well as the committee. 
He was superior to the members of the class in 
that he knew the answer to every question. They 
had failed now and then, but he could not be so 
accused as all the answers were in his head. The 
rebuke thus silently conveyed to the committee 
was that they did not have the address to pro- 
pound questions that would draw out the hidden 
wealth of the brother's mind as a sampling auger 
goes down into and comes up out of the sugar 
barrel incrusted and laden with sweetness. Again 
and again the committee thought that they had the 
sugar on the sampling auger. Again and again un- 
der different questions Brother Seven seemed to 
be taken down with intellectual birth throes. The 
committee, with sympathetically working lips and 
eyebrows, stood ready to assist the travailing 
brother. But he was never delivered ; the answer 
was never born. Brother Seven said it was there; 
but he lacked power to bring it into the world. 



A PHOTOGRAPH OF UNDERGRADUATES. 2~jq 

'.her Six lacked the strongly marked indi- 
viduality of the othei ^responded in men- 
tal clearness and force with the ancient daguerre- 
otype that looks forth in a laded, misty way on 
mankind. Brother Six bore a mystified look. 

whicli rspread his countenance 

the moment that the examination began and i 
left him until the work of asking quet 

ended. I! es on the chairman 

with a puzzled expr. it he were trying t<> 

fathom the innermost thoughts <»t the questioner. 

turned, you saw in them that 

mystified look. II<- seemed to be gazing 

Ofl problems that refused all solution. And no 

iked, whether at a ehair or a 

member ot the elass or one of the committee, he 

had t: .//led look for all. 

Section «<1 sum- 
mer lightning on the horizon. I remember to have 
i fluid play up and down 
1 around a quiet-looking purple cloud in the 
. about the grave-looking chairman 

did Bl 

mder : he .uW.r 

■ 

•i intil- 



28o PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

lated, went out in darkness and flared up again ; he 
rose and he fell and he fell and he rose, and to 
pile figure on figure, he churned the intellectual 
sea about him into the wildest confusion. Brother 
Five never waited for the chairman to finish a 
question. He caught it on the fly; he, with his 
ready wit, fathomed it at once, anticipated the 
rest, and rushed away in rapid word-flight to dis- 
cover in a few minutes that he was all wrong; that 
like Ahimaaz self-elected, he had run by way of 
the plain ; like him had practically nothing to say, 
and like him at the end of his pointless speech, 
was quietly set aside. 

Brother Four possessed a corrugated, thought- 
ful brow. He had a marvelous way of getting the 
answer piecemeal from the chairman, and then 
giving it back to him as a whole. He edged him- 
self into the enemy's country, stronghold by strong- 
hold, or more clearly word by word. The chair- 
man would assist him to one idea, and Brother 
Four holding it like a captured fortress repeated 
it over and over with knit eyebrows full of thought, 
until the chairman overcome in some way, in like 
manner surrendered another idea and still anoth- 
er until finally, Brother Four stood on the last 
fort of the foe and waved the answer in victory. 



A PHOTOGRAPH OF UNDERGRADUATES. 281 

When Brother Four could not make at times 

the successful raid over the fair fields of knowl- 

ta the chairman's mind; when Dr. Solomon 

got more solemn and refused to commit himself, 

and to the baffled brother gave the whole answer 

at once with most rebuking air, then Brother 

:'s invariable response was 

'• I was about to say that." 

And now, what more shall I say concerning 
Brothers Three, Two, and One? Are they not 
as having acquitted themselves well and 
nobly? They were men who .studied the course 
not simple to the 4 ommittee, but lor self-im- 

provement ami development. They were men 
red the text-book, and strove outside of 
.rriculurn for general knowledge and a wider 
culture in order to meet the frequent ami various 
on brain and heart: and whether 
with ; platform or in pulpit to be felt as 

for good in the noblest of 
! all callii 

reweU look at the class. There 

iy but refrain; 

many amusing incidents connected with 

ad committee that I could relate but for 

ilent. Mi mile a fare- 



282 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

well upon the brethren sketched in every stage of 
agony on the examination rack, and as you leave ; 
the room bear this thought with you. You may 
travel many thousands of miles and see myriads 
of young men, but you will never find ten hearts 
anywhere more loyal to God and man than these. 
You will be cast with many clergymen whose 
broadcloth has a finer sheen and whose education 
and attainments have a rarer polish, but, I ques- 
tion whether all of them put together have that 
knowledge of heart, of sin, of the way of holiness, 
of God, that a single one of these plainly clad, 
unassuming young men possesses and has pos- 
sessed for years. You will meet many a Church 
dignitary this year, many a spectacled D.D. or 
surpliced ecclesiastic, whose appearance will awe 
you and make you think that they have all power 
in heaven and earth ; but mark you, look in the 
faces of these young ministers. There is not one 
of them but will comfort and instruct more hearts, 
build more churches, push God's kingdom far- 
ther in every direction, lead more souls to God, 
in a word do more work for heaven in one year, 
than the aforesaid imposing -looking ecclesiastic 
will do in a lifetime, and a hundred lifetimes upon 
the top of that. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE SICKNESS OK ZIUNK 

T^IUXNE was sick. I grow confused when I 
Lit try to recollect her place of abode. It seemed 
once that I heard she resided on such and such a 
street in a large city. Tlu-n the report was that 
she was living in a small town, then again some 
lid that she was in the country, deep in the 
piney wood.-. Of <>nlv one thing I was absolutely 

sure — that -. ■ The rumor had been 

abroad some time. There lingered no doubt in 

the minds of those considering her case. Dr. Out- 

. her last physician, was certain of it. lie 
said as much to Dr. Incoming, the physician who 
Do>W him. 

•• Von will find her very far gone."' he said. 
"What fteema to be the matter with her?" 

ling. 
I then followed the consultation. The two 

physi< lying before them. 

She had been upon her back for many • 

D that her physician 

report. -d each j ithering i I 



284 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

ing up." Indeed, when one got to thinking about 
it, it was about all that she could do under the cir- 
cumstances. 

They both looked at her. She had a frail, wasted 
appearance. Evidently, she did not occupy as 
much sitting room as she once did. 

"Why sir," said Dr. Outgoing, "time was 
when the house could hardly contain her. She 
so to speak spread herself and filled the building, 
but" — dropping into a sad tone — "you see what 
is left of her." There was a moment of thought- 
ful silence and contemplation. Then Dr. Outgoing 
continued, " In rainy days she is even thinner, 
and at night she can hardly be seen. Moreover 
she seems to have but little feeling; the afferent 
and efferent nerves are deadened. You can jostle 
or jog her sharply, and she gives no sign. It 
matters not in regard to treatment whether it is 
gentle or severe — it is all alike to her. I have 
blistered her; and she groaned not. I have then 
spread healing and soothing plasters all over her, 
and she evinced no satisfaction." 

"It seems to me," said Dr. Incoming, "that 
she looked brighter when I came in just now. 
There was certainly an appearance of life, an ex- 
pression of hope." 



THE SICKNESS "I ZIUNNB. 2^5 

"O yes!" interrupted Dr. Outgoing. "She 
always does that way. She did the same for me 
when I was installed as her physician lour years 
ago. She looked brighter lor awhile. She 
color and appears revived with each new physi- 
cian for several weeks or months, and then she 
goes right down again. I remember," continued 
the doctor, " that when the physician who pre- 
ceded me told me just as I tell you tin 
hardly believed it; but felt sure that the patient 
was better, and wrote in my first official bulletin 
that there was every prospect of her recovery; 
that we thanked God, took courage, and would 
go forward. At this time." went on the d< 
with righ, "her form rounded out; she 

covered more sitting room; seemed animated; 

but, ... dl over. You see for yourself how 

spindling she is. She fa I away to noth- 

ing. T time that I ; '. for her. 

which Sunday night, I could hardly 

med SO emaciated." 

•- M ':. Incoming, " your treatment 

much r] for in- 

fo! at all," replied Dr. 

•:;.. I didn't dream at my 



286 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

first diagnosis that she was so critically ill; so I 
gave her little sugar pellets, and highly colored 
but harmless draughts and effervescing drinks 
taken from the fields of nature and science; but 
to my astonishment she grew rapidly worse." 

"Why, I heard," put in Dr. Incoming, "that 
she increased in size at that time." 

" Yes," returned Dr. Outgoing, with a groan; 
but it was an unhealthy state of things, a dropsical 
or bloated condition. I soon saw that she had no 
true strength. What did I want with so much 
flesh before me if there was no real life present? 
So I discontinued homeopathy and went to power- 
ful medicines administered in allopathic doses. I 
tell you it was simply amazing to see how the flesh 
disappeared under this treatment. She shrunk 
away to nothing after the third or fourth dose." 
" What did you give her? " asked Dr. Incoming. 
"Well, I gave her some decoctions of worm- 
wood and administered sulphur freely. I also 
used some biting acids and caustic on some proud 
flesh which I discovered. I also relied on fly 
blisters, not to speak of cupping bleeding and one 
or two surgical operations. You see for yourself 
what is left of her." 

" Did you do nothing to build her up ? " 



THE SICKNESS 01 ZIUNNE. 

: I gave her plenty of strong meat, but 
she turns from it with loathing. I urge it on her, 
telling her .-he mU8t go on to perfect strength, and 
she doeefl her eyes and stretclies out on her back 
flatter than ever." 

•• Has nothing rise been tril 

•• Ye8, every physician that Bhe has employed 
.d a plan and treatment of his own, but noth- 
ing 1. led."* 

• So, then." said Dr. Incoming: " she has had 
a number <>t physicians? " 

••A dozen" replied Dr. Outgoing; to my cer- 
tain knowledge. And Bhe actually intimates that 
partly the matter with her. She Bays that 
like the woman in the gospel who suffered 
much ol many physician^. Nevertheless, -he has 
d with every mw physician who 
arriv. That ac- 

up a lew moments 

.. \l,, i n d d Dr. In< oming, with a dry 

-,h." 

I Outgoing; "she may 

iy DOt. No 01 

lc ll. and hard to pie. 

ally'r" 



288 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

" Well, yes. Now I think of it. She had sev- 
eral favorites. She says that she once had a doc- 
tor who was very lively and hopeful; that he used 
to hold her up from her seat, and by propping her 
up in some way made her stand awhile, telling 
her that she stood in her own strength; that she 
did feel better for a while. But he left her after 
two or three years; is now in a distant State, and 
no one else will do her that way, and so she is 
down flat again. Then she speaks occasionally of 
another whom she says did not believe in medi- 
cine, particularly bitter medicine, nor in strong 
meat, but gave her thin soups dashed with some- 
thing sparkling and exhilarating, and a light hash 
diet made up of she hardly knows what, only it 
was pleasant to the taste. Moreover, she says that 
he kept her laughing all the time; he said so many 
funny things. At one time, she never can forget 
it, she laughed until she cried. Under his treat- 
ment she almost forgot she was sick. Now and 
then she felt when alone, a great pain in her 
heart; but while he was talking and prescribing 
she forgot her malady; indeed he insisted all along 
that there was nothing the matter with her; that 
she was all right. Then she wound up the recital 
by saying ' How much I would like to see him 



THJ S OK ZIUNNB. 

again, and where ifl he now, anyhow? ' Mori 

she speaks of another who put hei p with 

opiates. True ra (.lur- 

ing tfa ule rapid inn- 

- How about her 

le has [lOIie to speak 
quit Binging 

: but the lailu: marked that >he has 

not tri what a 

about done. Her 
. 
While tin- two physicians wi ged in this 

consultation, tl Bitting upon a pil 

furniture called a fugklfitS which, from its 

e them a good view of the patient. 

had finished speaking, they 

r looking at the wasted object 

them. Ziunne meanwhile hail manifested little or 
no interest in what was being said. Sometimes 

.she idly turned tl I I hymn book. 

through '-' • indoW at the distant * 

but ip 

■ 
iditional I id to 



29O PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

her case, Dr. Incoming, in bidding farewell to 
Dr. Outgoing, announced that he intended calling 
in to his assistance four or five other practitioners 
well and favorably known. "I haven't a doubt 
but that you have met them. Their names are 
Drs. Solium, Proppoorzeeshun,* Lowd, Criezy 
and Cevere." 

Dr. Outgoing arched his left eyebrow and ele- 
vated his right shoulder in reply. 

In due time the gentlemen arrived and first Dr. 
Solium exhibited his skill. He lost little time in 
making his diagnosis. "My dear friend," said 
he, in a funeral manner; "I am under the sad 
necessity of informing you that you are very far 
gone, indeed. From the crown of your head to 
the sole of your feet you are diseased. There is 
no soundness in you." As soon as Ziunne heard 
this far, she at once collapsed figuratively speak- 
ing, and straightened herself out for burial. Cold 
at first she became much colder. Her eyes be- 
came lack-luster and the whole body rigid. Dr. 
Incoming at once protested. But Solium at once 
retorted, "You sent for me to help recover the 
patient, and I have started right. It is necessary, 
first, to impress upon her her desperate condition, 

* A difficult German name. 



THE SICKNESS OF ZIUH 2gi 

then she will take the ala ill set in, 

and — " 

me," interrupted Dr. Incoming, 
with a groan, .1- he contemplated the rigid body 
before him; "that you have about finished b< 

•• Very g '..' inn, with frigid dig 

nity: "I will retire and trouble you no l"i.. 
And retire he did. 

The second evening . eshun t<>«.k 

'lis method, he ild be different 

draw out her resources and slit- 
her with her Strength. He 
recumbent 
form and in a \ Ql manner 

thus delivered him- 

feel t': -• all right ami well, 

1." 

. 
• I will 

It plainly an.: 

| 

■ 



292 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

Dr. Proppoorzeeshun was radiant; but even 
while he was congratulating himself and had 
turned to speak to Dr. Incoming, Ziunne evident- 
ly weakened and sunk back rapidly and looked 
as though she had never stirred before nor could 
ever rise thereafter. It proved a dead faint, and 
nothing else that was done for her that evening 
could arouse her. 

Time would fail to tell all that was done on the 
evenings that followed. Suffice it to say that Dr. 
Lowd greatly tried her nerves, indeed so much 
so that she rallied enough to thus express herself 
and positively refused to listen to anything he had 
to say. 

Dr. Criezy won upon her for awhile ; but she 
soon wearied of hydropathy and said he made her 
feel sick and uncomfortable. 

The last one who tried his skill was Dr. Cevere. 
His first announcement was certainly not soothing. 
"Madam," said he; "I discover that several of 
the members of your body are diseased. The 
only hope for you is amputation." 

This brought Ziunne to her feet — while she de- 
livered a flat refusal — adding that they were no 
more diseased than his own members. All this 
was communicated with such spirit that Dr. Ce- 



TH: 58 OF ZIUNNB. 293 

vere was tor a time thrown off his balance: but 
he soon recovered and returned to the charge. 

•• 1 am moreover confident," he continued, 
" that much of your trouble springs from internal 
derangement. Certain organs arc not performing 
their proper functions; your stomach IS overload- 
ed With indigestible matter, and right here, among 
other thin. I an emetic. This I 

w iH J .:. What you need is to 

1 k. not as yon have been, but sick 

absolutely ; " tllL ' Vt ' r . v P ains 

I hold opon you. I urge the emetic 

upon yOU because you have partaken of things— ' 

lid Zhinne, sullenly; " 1 have 

nothing in me at all." 

•• But, madam, yOUf eyes and tOOgUC declare it, 

tod other rymptomi are unmistakable. You must 
take thia eroetii . What you want is a perfect clean- 
ing ■ 

ioistered. In due time 

Zmnne exhil 

encouragingly. 

• •i . plied Ziunne, gloomily. 

• this way." said the 

trtain motions i tal 

drau. i •; h will help 



294 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

" I repeat," said Ziunne, "there is nothing in 
me. I have done nothing to deserve this. Why have 
you all agreed to torment me before the time?" 

What need to say anything more? The week's 
conference and labor ended as Dr. Outgoing's 
ej-ebrow had predicted — in nothing. 

The physicians in attendance left at different 
times and in ways peculiar to themselves. Dr. 
Solium left with a groan. Dr. Criezy went away 
shaking his head. Dr. Proppoorzeeshun departed 
looking mystified, aud with the air of a man who 
had exhausted all earthly expedients. "Nothing 
less than a thunderbolt from the sky, a miracle 
from heaven," said he, " can do the work." 

Dr. Cevere, in leaving, shook the skirts of his 
coat in a remarkable manner, and at the front gate 
was observed to wipe off the dust from his shoes. 
Dr. Incoming was left alone with the patient 
for the rest of the year. Some say he looks 
more haggard and prostrated than his patient. 

The time is approaching for the regular annual 
convocation of physicians, and the doctor is pre- 
paring an official bulletin relative to the health of 
his interesting charge. I have just looked over 
his shoulder and read the following original and 
thrilling item, " Ziunne is looking up." 



CHAPTER ' 

Tin 

THE T irrypii i to meet in the 

tuterville. The Church in that 

it, and [ation 

hould 
• and hacking. The 
•'.emen compo delegation had 

each leclaring the many excel- 

terville, t!. rity of the rail- 

that ran by the town, the hospitality of the 
■ 

liver them- 

in an impromptu way of their carefully pre- 

in charge 

rything that could and should 
lD a few • 

Blustervi 

their chief i<>y. 
whether the 

hem the; 

i burch th< 



296 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

the moral toning up that would be given it by the 
Conference; that if the Conference did not come 
his work as a pastor on that charge would be set 
back four years ; that his people had never seen a 
bishop and they wanted to see one, and had a 
right to do so. " What! " he exclaimed dramatic- 
ally, "should our old members go down to the 
grave and our children grow up without ever seeing 
a bishop? " 

The inviting preacher inspired by the approving 
smiles and nods of the Delegation of Three, also 
said that the men in Blusterville were willing to 
give up their rooms and sleep in the galleries if 
necessary ; that the front doors would be knocked 
down if need be and split up into kindling wood 
to make fires to cook the meals and warm the 
bodies of the members of the Tarrypin Confer- 
ence. 

A number of other very nice sweet oily en- 
thusiastic and impossible things were said by the 
brother who suddenly wound up for the lack of 
breath and from a sheepish consciousness that 
his point had been gained some time before. The 
Conference had been willing to go from the start; 
and like a woman we know who accepted the suit- 
or for her hand before he finished his speech, even 



THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE J97 

so was the spirit and attitude of the Tarrypin Con- 
ference. 

The other reason why there was no need for 
the Delegation of Three, the Colonel Judge and 
Doctor to speak their prepared impromptu speech- 
es and urge their plea, was that there was no other 
place that was bidding for the Conference. It was 
Hobson's Choice with the Conference: they had 
to go to Blusterville. 

The town of Nabobville that had enjoyed the 
session of the Conference the year before. Baid 
publicly ami with startling plainness that the mem- 
bers of the Tarrypin Conference had nearly ruined 
their church walls and floor with tobacco juice, 
and had scented their window curtains at home 
with cigar smoke, ami they would take a rest for 
a while. 

tad "1 there being no other place bidding 
for the next session, seemed to escape the atten- 
tion of the eloquent inviter and many others in the 
Conference who took a Berene pleasure in having 
their headfl BOftly and soothingly rubbed, until 
ind with a rap ot the gavel Bald 

•• \o other place bring in nomination, you will 

now pi vote. All in favor of the next An- 

nual Conference being held in Blusterville say I." 



298 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

The vote was unanimous. Whereupon the 
preacher in charge at that town the Rev. Mr. 
Frisky smiled, nodded his head, and looked as 
if a mountain had been rolled off his breast, and 
went over immediately to the Delegation of Three, 
and shook congratulatory hands with them all, 
one of whom an old gentleman with the palsy ac- 
tually shed tears of joy. 

So this was the way that the Tarrypin Confer- 
ence came to Blusterville. It is true that Brother 
Frisky told his wife that his speech did the thing; 
but there was a conviction among the laity started 
by sundry nods and dark sayings of the commit- 
tee which went with him, that but for the strong 
and silent influence of the Delegation of Three, 
the Colonel Judge and Doctor, that Brother 
Frisky could never have carried his point. So all 
were contented. But it was evident to all that the 
Colonel Judge and Doctor were regarded with 
increased respect from the day they returned from 
the session with the news that they had secured 
the Conference for their town for the following 

y ear - 

There was quite a nutter among the citizens of 
Blusterville when twelve months after that, the 
first arrivals of the Conference took place, and 



THE ANNUAL CON! 299 

certain beaver-hatted and overcoated gentlemen 
walked the streets of the town. 

These first comers were the committees and 
classes for examination, with a few other brethren 
who came on ahead of time from their chaff 

One of this Lot class was put up at night to 
h. Hut he preached and the audien 
tened with the feeling that the big time was to 
come on the morrow, that tl guns were 

d be unlimbered. The sermon was 
evidently prepared for the Conference, and it was 
most unfortunate that the brother was caught up 
so soon, and before the Conference proper had 
arrived. But the sermon appeared in the regular 

erence letter in the following paragraph — 

•• We heard great things of Brother Toosoon's 

sermon on Tuesday night; the echo of it had not 

d to reverberate at the time of our arrival. 

ready regret that it was not our good fortune 
to hear it." 

At midnight oi Tue day the main body <>t the 

I • with the bishop arrived. Next morn- 

ing beaver hats were everywhere; and all were 

I a common center, 

list ( Ihurch of the town. In front 

of the ta another collection <>t 



300 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

beaver-hatted and overcoated gentlemen who were 
shaking hands and hawhawing with great hearti- 
ness over the sallies and salutations of still other 
incoming beaver hats and overcoats. 

Promptly at 9 a.m. the Bishop arose and read 
the hymn, 

And are we yet alive? 

At the sound of the hymn the hats in front of 
the church all came in, and the feet correspond- 
ing to the hats proceeded to tread into an undis- 
tinguishable mass the first two stanzas of the grand 
old melody that has moved and melted ten thou- 
sand faithful hearts on earth and in heaven. 

After prayer and Scripture reading by the bish- 
op, there was a second prayer by Brother Patriarch. 

After this the bishop made some opening re- 
marks. He said that he was " glad to be at the 
Tarrypin Conference;" whereupon the Confer- 
ence looked glad also. 

He said that he had often heard of fhe life and 
movements of the Tarrypin Conference, and how 
it had outstripped other sister Conferences in the 
race, in some good things." 

Here the Conference was undecided whether to 
look proud or humble. 

The bishop went on to say that he had " been 



TUB ANNUAL CONFBRSNC 3OI 

traveling several days to reach the seat of the Con- 
lerence and had lost much rest and was feeling 
quite jaded." 

Immediately the Conference looked very tired 
for him. 

" But," the bishop added. " he looked for their 
aid, sympathy and prayers, and felt that thev would 
have a pleasant ami profitable service." 

The Conference at once brightened ami looked 
as if they felt so too. 

With some other general and inspiring remarks 

the bishop directed the secretary to call the roll. 

After this otlicer had performed on a remarkable 

human instrument in which one hundred and fifty 

answered '• Here " ami " Present" in one 

hundred ami titty different intonations, the elec- 
tion of secretaries and appointment of committees 
took p] 

During these preparatory steps, and clearing 

eneral action, there was considera- 
ble bustle in bringing in two small tables tor the 

•• Pre 
The u Pre88" was represented by two beard- 
ouths who carried a great roll "t white paper 

• hand, a p«-m il 00 One ear, and WOTC bur- 
dened and vet consequential looks on their coun- 



302 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

tenances. There seemed just a curious flicker in 
the bishop's eye as he glanced under his eyebrows 
at the two young gentlemen of the quill as they sat 
one on the right hand, and the other on his left. 
The twinkle seemed to say " We are in for it 
now." And so it proved in the different reports 
that fell from their remarkable pencils. One 
statement being that " twenty traveling preach- 
ers had their characters examined and all were 
located at their own request." * 

The two Mr. Quilldrivers were exceedingly anx- 
ious to know the name of every one who stood on 
his feet to make a motion, or to call the attention 
of the " Chair" to the fact that Brother So and So 
from Wildcat Bottom had arrived and desired his 
name to be entered on the roll as present. 

When the reading of the Publishing House re- 
port took place the "Press" was evidently flut- 
tered, and the way their pencils flew one could 
see that they thought they had struck the very ker- 
nel and substance of the Conference proceedings. 
But soon becoming mentally abstracted and in- 
volved over the report, one commenced paring his 
nails, and the other drew heads and curious de- 
signs on the margin of a newspaper. 

*An actual report. 



THE ANNUAL CONFBRB1S 303 

At this juncture other little tables were brought 
up the aisle with their legs lifted appealinglv in 
the air, and deposited in various corners and 
nooks for the editors of the Jerusalem and Jer- 
ichu AdvoccUeSy and lor the treasurers of the dif- 
ferent Conference I 

Pencils now abounded, paper was in demand, 
a business look settled upon all faces, stooping 
forms in front of the "Chair," others 

I around and whispered, line-looking men 
with beaver hats held up straight in the left hand, 
and with umbrella or walking cane under the 
right arm moved about smiling bowing shaking 
here and there and listening occasionally 
to the proceedings. 

lies lent their smiles and feathers to grace 

Some of them bent forward to ask 

who the young preacher was with flowing black 

hair and gold eyeglasses who hail just arisen in an 

to announce that Brother Jack 

inbotham a lay member of the Persimmon 

District had just arrived, and lie wanted tin 

retary to take n 

Clusters of whisperers gathered in corners. 
Men butt-: h other in whispered speech. 

Still others bowed down over sitting forms in wins- 



3O4 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

per. Congestion speedily set in, in the form of 
groups in the vestibule, around the stove, and about 
the tables of the money changers. The combined 
whisper became simply terrific, when — Crack! 
down came the bishop's gavel on the table before 
him, scores started, congested groups broke up, 
the ganglionic centers were relieved, and a pro- 
found stillness was realized for two minutes in the 
midst of which sudden silence and compelled at- 
tention could be heard a voice with monotonous 
mechanical and nasal accent saying 

" We have four church buildings bishop, and a 
membership of three hundred, etc. 

"Are your people religious" queried the bishop 
looking sharply over his gold-rimmed glasses at 
the reporting brother. 

"Well bishop" drawled Brother Mechanical 
rubbing his chin reflectively " I would say mid- 
dling so." 

But here the buzz in the corners began again 
and other interesting and edifying facts were lost. 

Prominent and conspicuous in the assembly were 
the presiding elders. They all carried in their 
hands large leathern wallets or bill pocketbooks 
filled with all kinds of papers. They also carried 
about with them a burdened and careworn look as 



THE ANNUAL CONFBRBN 

if not only the Conference but the entire Church 
rested on their shoulders. Their eyes had a look 
as if they were trying to remember two or three 
dozen different things at once. This greatly im- 
.n^ preachers who were divided in 
their opinions as to whether this look of care came 
from anxiety in regard to the stationing of the 
preachers or from other responsibilities not under- 
stood but connected with the office. Some of the 
older brethren thought this look sprang purely from 
a concern about their own appointments; but it is 
to be remembered that there are always suspicious 

people. 

It was noticeable that these gentlemen were never 

alone after the Conference was opened, hut were 

around, and buttonholed, and pulled into 
'id sought after with great assiduity by 

different members of the Conference. It was 

- that the presiding elder at such 
bad a far-away look BS it he were contem- 
plating distant ranges of mountains or watching 

break oa lonely shore.-. Curiously also 
the interviewer on his departure bore away with 

him a lik ze. 

Still another feci was that when the bish< p in 
nnouncement each day would say 



306 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

" The presiding elders will please meet me at 
three o'clock this afternoon at the residence of 
Col. Blowhard," one could have heard a pin drop. 
This with other things equally strange and remark- 
able impressed the mind with the fact of the im- 
portance of the presiding elder, and his eminent 
fitness to go to the General Conference whether 
he should ever be one of the twenty-four elders 
that stand around the Throne or not. 

The introduction of connectional officers was a 
marked feature of the first morning session. It is 
true that this had been done a number of times 
before, but some people we know are bashful, and 
it pays to be polite. Anyhow the Conference 
arose to be introduced again to the brethren they 
had been introduced to before, and seemed really 
glad to know the officers. 

So the Conference came from a sitting to a 
standing position, and then fell back, and rose and 
fell again, and fell and rose as first Dr. A of one 
Board, and Dr. B of another Board and Dr. C of 
a third Board, and Dr. D of no Board at all were 
presented. 

There was a playful bit of sparring between two 
of the Doctors on the subject of age: Dr. B say- 
ing that he was glad to be preceded by Dr. A who 



THE ANNUAL CONFERS* jo; 

receded him into the world bv a good - 

that he remembered as a child how his 
mother eulogized the preaching of Dr. A. As Dr. 
B looked even grayer than Dr. A, all this produced 
great laughter, and so tl C : ' :vnce unbent it- 
self and Bhuffled . and laughed quite loudly, 
until it noticed the gravity of the bishop, who by 
the way had heard the humorous sally a dozen 
. and who therefore could hardly look other- 
: then the Conference suddenly became grave 
and like Henry of England never smiled again. 
Two e.v . ould not but deeply in 

I ■ ence. The words were not 

remarkable in themselves, but their frequent repe- 
tition actually made a mental gullv or canyon so 
that the thoughts had to move in that direction. 

One ,,; th< was "This Conference 

sir." The loftiness with which this phrase was 

Uttered could not be justly described. Something 
high and exalted was alluded to, and yet 

one seemed to know its mind and just what 
with ami tor it. It seemed in a sense to be- 
long • Icei . •• This Conferen< 

will nc •• t<> this or that," "This Conter- 

I ' aiter- 

." •• This Con- 



308 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

ference sir cannot afford:" or the "prestige," 
"standing" and "record" of "this Conference 
sir" etc. etc. It was a psychological study to see 
how the Conference changed its looks as it felt 
the touch of certain adjectives, and so would look 
offended, injured, dignified or gracious according 
to the picture that was being drawn of it at the 
time. 

Another memorable expression washed up on 
the shore of memory is " That's so." 

How often it was heard as the week's session 
rolled on. Especially in times of speeches and 
debates. As one brother made his point clear, a 
chorus of "that's sos " would ring out. But alas 
for human stability, the brother who followed the 
speaker knocked down his arguments and then 
presented his side of the case when lo ! a perfect 
volley of "that's sos" from the Conference. 
With a nine-tenths vote a question looks settled, 
and the Conference raised a slab over the buried 
matter with the inscription "That's so." But 
Speaker No. 3 said that he felt troubled at the 
hasty action of the Conference, that he did not 
want " this Conference " to go down to history as 
having done such a thing, and proceeded to pile 
up arguments some new, and more of them old, 



THB ANNUAL CON] I RJ N oQp 

and asked as having been a voter with the majori- 
ty for the privilege of reconsidering the action they 
had taken. Whereupon the Conference with a 
hearty - that's so" proceeded to take the hack 
track or flop entirely over. The story 
clerical member of one of the Conferences that 
after most warmly advancing his Views in a certain 
. the bishop arose and just as fervently ad- 
vanced opposite views, whereupon this brother 
wiping his face not yet cool from his own B] 
cried out 
•'That's so bishop — those are my sentiments." 
The Conference laughed uproariously over the 

incident, but railed to Bee that the man was doing 

just what the Conference Itself had done a thou- 
sand times bef< 
The first announcement oi the Committee on 

Public Worship was also an impressive moment. 

Again the pin-dropping stillness was apparent, 

a sudden rigidity fell upon fully twenty preachers. 

•• Preaching to-night in this building! 
Rev. I . K. A. Sk : . 

his announcement was equally 
striking. At least ten men breath. ■ 'hers 

felt overlooked, and 

. but tailed. He spent the 



3IO PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

afternoon pacing up and down his room rehearsing 
the golden periods that were to roll forth on the 
astonished and delighted audience of that night. 
But he had used up most of his vitality in a con- 
fined room, lost mental spring in the burden of 
memorized speech, and failed to linger for the di- 
vine freshness and unction upon the soul without 
which all sermons are failures. So Brother Sky- 
scraper's kite flew low that night; it failed to an- 
swer in upward soarings the jerk of the hand in 
the pulpit; and it was vain for the brother to toss 
back his hair and look upward as if he saw his 
subject aloft, when the tail of the kite was in a 
black-jack thicket. There were no responses 
from the brethren that night as is wont to be at 
Conference, and as is always the case when the 
holy fire falls and God comes down upon his serv- 
ant. Brother Skyscraper came out of the church 
that night a sadder man, but not wiser, as he at- 
tributed his lack of soaring power to loss of sleep 
on the previous night. The only compliment that 
he received was from a girl sixteen years old who 
told him next day that he had preached " a mighty 
pretty sermon.'' Brother Skyscraper groaned in- 
wardly. So his abstract abstruse erudite discourse 
was " a mighty pretty sermon ! " 



THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 31 1 

• had known it he was in a similar condition 
to that of the young preacher who bad lamentably 
failed in the pulpit after entering it full of swag- 
gering confidence. An old preacher laid his hand 
upon the drooping head, and said these Win- 
Words — 

••Ii you had gone into that pulpit feeling like 
you do now in coming out of that pulpit: you 
would have come out of that pulpit feeling like 
you did when you went into that pulpit." 

One morning the business proceedings were 
stopped that a gavel might be presented to the 
I irence by .1 certain individual. It was made- 

out of wood taken from a rafter of the house in 
which Bishop LongtimeagO was born. The Con- 
pressed its thanks by a rising vote. The 
wanted to deliver a Bpeech in connection 
with the presentation of the gavel, but the rumor 

getting out that the speech was an hour long, com- 

promj ide with him for live minutes of it, 

and the rest wa published. All of which 

both parti 

Other interesting and important features of the 

* because touched upon in 

•his volume. 

• the last dav are familiar to 



3 12 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

all. Everybody is thanked in these resolutions, 
the railroad, steamboats, hotel keepers, telegraph 
operators, newspaper reporters, citizen entertain- 
ers, sexton, and all. Who can forget that rich 
original and highly correct sentence ' ; Who have 
opened their doors and spread their tables." 

The appointments were to be read at 8 p.m. 
Monday. The church was jammed before the 
hour by people who came to behold the last of the 
Tarrypin Conference and see how preachers could 
take appointments and disappointments. 

The presiding elders came in late, all wearing a 
burdened look. It was whispered that the bishop 
was lingering in his room over the "list." Fully 
half the preachers looked like they were Jacob's 
cattle, for some felt streaked, others striped, and 
still others spotted. 

Some last piece of business was attended to, 
several hymns were sung, and the bishop was seen 
working his way up the crowded aisle. He looked 
graver than the presiding elders, and Jacob's cat- 
tle increased. 

The old-time hymn was raised and sung, 
Blest be the dear uniting love 

That will not let us part: 

Our bodies may far off remove 

We still are one in heart. 



TBS ANNUAL CONFERS* 313 

Brother Patriarch was called upon to pray, the 
brethren groaned all over the house, and some 
marvelous battles were fought and victories won 
known only to God. 

:• this the bishop gave his final address in 
which he said that he would like to have given 
every man tin- best appointment; but there were 
world called it good appointments and 
many preachers t-> appoint. He begged them to 
mber however that all appointments were 
good it there were souls to save and broken hearts 
to bind up. He recalled the sacrifice and poverty 
and toil of' the Saviour, and bade them go out in 
his spirit to do good and bless mankind. He 
called them bundles oi mercy, and told them how 
their presence would bring light, comfort and sal- 
vation to many a soul that this moment was sitting 
in sorrow and darkness and knew not that God 
-•n th.-n preparing U> semi the messenger of 
and lite. 

en he Concluded and opened the list a still- 
that was painful tilled the room. One COttld 

• hear hearts beat. The only calm ones were 

some who knew where th.-y were going, and two 

eonnectiona] offii en wh<> were out of the ring and 

I «>n With a curl is thev tried to 



314 PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

recall how they used to feel in other years before 
their promotion. 

The "Press" was on hand with a ream of 
paper. Preachers with notebooks and pencils 
fixed a steadfast eye on the bishop waiting for the 
first word. Still others were crouched in dark 
corners that when the dagger of disappointment 
which they expected was thrust into their hearts, 
no one would see their blanched faces and witness 
their suffering. And others still were scattered 
through the congregation assuming a smiling care- 
less spirit which they did not feel. 

The reading at last commenced with the words 

Nabob District. 

A. Soft Presiding Elder. 

Nabobville Station U. R. Nice. 

Hollow Circuit M. T. Head. 

Hard Mission I. M. Poorman. 

Etc. etc. etc. 

During the reading of the appointments scarcely 
a preacher opened his lips. A Spartan courage 
and fortitude was in more than one that night. 
But while the preachers who were receiving the 
elevations or the knockdowns said nothing; from 
the audience came sympathetic "Ahs " and 
" Ohs " that would rise like the sound of a wind 



THE ANNUAL CONFERENCE. 315 

in the trees, and as suddenly die away. And once 
there was a hand clapping when the name of 
Brother Frisky was read out for the second year 
at Blusterville. 

The end was reached at last, the doxologv was 
Ring, the benediction pronounced, and then the 
dying and the dead began to be found. There 
were hand shakings, hearty congratulations, and 
also words of tender sympathy spoken in secret. 
- were smiling, some were cloudy, and 
others were nigh to tears. But the Lord looked 
down ami said that he would take care of them 
all; and that the laughing brother needed him as 
much as his sighing servant who was walking 
heartbroken at that minute On the darkened street. 
And he did as he said, lie took care of them all. 

It was not yet day when the Tarn-pin Confer- 
enCC .1- embled at the station lor departure on the 
early morning •■ I [ere anil there a late 

member could be seen hurrying along the shadowy 

while feeble lights gleamed through the 
air from the windows of homo that had 

prepared a hasty meal for the vanishing guests. 

A freight train loaded with geese thundered by 
And then backed into a ride track. The confined 
lo^K - ks and screamed loudlv 



3IS PASTORAL SKETCHES. 

at the preachers, at which there was a loud laugh 
among the beaver hats. 

Strange sights were seen while the Conference 
waited for the " Passenger." The leaders of the 
two wings of the Conference were seen fraterni- 
zing as if there had never been a difference of 
opinion. The two Boanerges who had cut each 
other to pieces on the Conference floor the after- 
noon before were now seen sitting amicably on a 
trunk side by side. The brother who wrote the 
Jeremiad on the State of the Church was envel- 
oped in a cloud of tobacco smoke of his own mak- 
ing. The bishop who had been fairly encircled with 
individuals and burdened with attentions before the 
reading of the appointments, now stood alone in 
meditative position leaning upon his umbrella. 

Just as day was breaking the red eye of the lo- 
comotive was seen in the distance, and in a few 
moments the panting " Express " ten minutes late 
rolled into the station, and in a trice had swallowed 
up a hundred beaver hats and valises. 

Just then a lonely rooster away up town some- 
where flapped his wings and sent forth on the air 
a dismal and heartbreaking crow. The Confer- 
ence went out, and the rooster came in and crew 
bitterlv. lie was the last of his tribe. 



THE ANNUAL CONFERENI 3 J 7 

In two minutes more the train was thundering 
out of town ; the last coach disappeared with its 
red lanterns around a curve, the black smoke of 
the engine drilled heavily oil amid the pine b 
and the Tarrypin Conference with all its speeches 
and debater, with all its " whereases " and " be it 
resolveds," with all its motions and commotions, 
with all its proceedings and recedings — was gone 



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